2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

We take a break from requests to go to the opera….Argento’s Opera, that is. And oh boy, did this movie divide us. One loved it, one hated it. Listen for the good, bad and ugly, and lots of angry birds.

Opera (1987)

Episode 220, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig

Todd: Today we decided to take a break from requests a little bit and do a film from 1987 by one of my most favorite horror directors. We hadn’t done a Dario Argento movie in a little while. We had done a movie produced by him, but this is a movie he actually directed called opera. So I had never seen this film before.

I’d always been on my list. It sounded very intriguing. I’m a big fan of these movies that take place within the making of a movie or in this case, the making of a play. We just recently did a film. That took place in a movie theater called demons. So this somehow just kind of jumped to the top of my list and I suggested that we do it this week.

And I have to say, I really enjoyed this movie. I mean, I’m probably, it’s probably going to go down as one of my favorite are gentle films, just so gorgeous. So interesting. So intriguing, accessible, not to say it didn’t have issues here and there, but honestly I loved watching this movie and maybe some of it has to do.

With the fact that I just got a brand new, like 55 inch TV set, and I was able to watch it on that because the cinematography in here is really quite gorgeous. Anyway, I’m going to have a lot of nice things to say about this movie. I think. How about you, Craig? What’s your history with this film?

Craig: Um, I know who Darrio Kenzo is he directed Suspiria, right?

Yeah. Um, I think that I had seen this title. I’m not sure I didn’t know anything about it and I didn’t look much into it at all. Uh, before we started, I, I kind of looked at the trivia on IMDV or started to and saw a couple of things. I was like, ah, I think I better wait. And watch it first before I get too much into this.

And I’m really glad that you liked it and have a lot to say about it. Cause I fucking hated it.

wow.

Todd: Oh my gosh. I cannot wait for this conversation.

You hated it. Why did you hate this movie? So much,

Craig: it was boring. It was super boring and the story was stupid. And, um, so like other giallo pictures, it’s basically like a mystery, like who done it and. I didn’t care. And then when you find out who did it, like, unless I missed something, which I feel like I did.

Cause I feel like there were all kinds of things going on that I just had no idea what was happening. I felt like there was absolutely no way that you could have pieced together. Who did it on your own? Like, it just kind of came out of nowhere and they solved the mystery with birds. And I am not down with it.

It was so stupid.

Todd: Now, wait a second. Now I don’t remember exactly how you felt about phenomena, but in that movie they solve the mystery with flies. I I’m surprised you didn’t think that bird’s, wasn’t a step or two up from,

Craig: I don’t know.

Todd: I kind of also wonder. Alright, you’ve got to say, what mood were you in when you watched this? What were you doing? Where were you sitting? Did you watch us on your computer? Yeah, something else. Oh, my

Craig: God. Well, I got engaged in other things cause I got so bored. Like

I was, I was in my living room as I usually am watching it on my like 12 inch computer screen. And my partner is working from home. Because of the pandemic and he walked through and I was on my phone

Todd: with the movie on

Craig: and he said, are you still watching your movie? And I said, kind of,

Oh my God, that’s how Intuit I was now. I will say, okay, fine. From a cinematography perspective. Fine. It was all right. But. And, you know, the signature Argento things that I’m aware of. I’m certainly not a scholar, but, you know, just based on my very limited experience, having seen Suspiria, you know, like all of the bright colors and the closeups on like eyes and things, like, I understand that these are trademarks and they were there.

So. Okay.

There were, there were a couple of interesting visuals. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know where you want to start because I, one of the things that drove me the most crazy was that. The main girl, Betty, which is even right there, like the lamest name for a PR for a heroin ever. Betty, I hated her. And I thought that she was one of the most stupid people I’ve ever witnessed on film.

Really. And yes, like. And it wasn’t just her. It was everybody. So like, okay, so she’s this opera singer and they’re putting on this big, like experimental performance of Macbeth and the lead actress is a diva who storms out of the dress rehearsal because there are. Ravens in the play and they’re distracting her or something.

So she storms out and she gets hit by a car. So Betty is this ingenue, I guess who gets she’s the understudy. So she gets called in to do it and she comes in and she does it. And that’s a whole thing. Like that scene was kind of funny with like the bird, somebody. So she’s performing. As lady Macbeth and she’s singing, somebody throws a Raven at her head, like,

Todd: what is this?

Craig: But even, even before somebody literally throws a Raven at her head, we had all these POV shots. Of, I don’t know, somebody creeping around the theater and then I like whoever this person is. I just kept calling them gloves. Cause that’s all you ever seen. So like, like or ever see gloves is creeping around and creeps into like this private box and gets caught by a usher or stage hand or something.

There’s a little bit of a scuffle in which some stage lights fall. From the balcony during the performance with shops, the performance for a second, the bad guy kills the stage hand, and they carry on with the show. And then later, like right after Betty’s boyfriend comes in and is talking to her and it’s like,

Todd: Oh, maybe because of the accident with the lights, one of the stagehands died.

Yeah. It’s pretty weird.

Craig: Throughout the whole course of the movie, this girl keeps watching, literally watching people get murdered and then just walks away. Like nothing. She never calls the police. She never like,

Todd: yeah.

Craig: It’s so stupid.

Todd: Yeah. Well, let’s dial it back just a little bit fine because, because I want to talk about this.

Look, we’ve talked about this before. I mean, I dunno, we’ve seen at least. Four, maybe five of his movies. Now, did we do Suspiria yet? I’m not telling him blood red. We did like phenomena. I thought it was all right, at least one or two others, but you know, he has his style and it’s this giallo style gloves, obviously his own hands.

He loves to play the glove to killers, hands in his movies for reasons that are probably just to keep a creepy image about him, of course, plots that. Don’t always make a lot of sense because. Making sense as a plot is probably not the first thing he’s super interested in as a filmmaker, he’s really interested with imagery and emotion and shock.

And I really kind of fell in love with this movie from the very first of the scenes, because I was getting that before I ever got any of the plot I was getting. This beautiful sweeping view of this gorgeous opera house. There’s this Raven cawing away, which was super annoying, but I think it was that way on purpose.

You know, there’s the sound of the singer singing that’s juxtaposed. We don’t get to see the singer singing in the beginning. All we get to see is this closeup on this Raven, which every now and then pops into the Raven’s eye and becomes a closeup on the Ravens. I, uh, which you know, eyes, like you said, it’s kind of one of our gentle things.

Images of eyes and of seeing and of seeing things properly. It’s kind of part of the giallo genre in general, but he uses, I think, particularly focus on focuses on eyes and seeing in this movie. And so even when there’s a closeup on the Ravens, I. Sometimes you’ll see something of the scene reflected in the Raven’s eyes.

So it’s just as generally annoying calling and calling and calling of this Raven, while this actress is singing and we never see the actress. And then when she gets pissed off, because the Ravens are flying around, continue to batter her head while she’s trying to sing. During this rehearsal, she storms off the stage, like you said, but we don’t see that from a third person view, you know, it’s a POV shot from her, but almost like the cameras attached to the back of her head as she’s storming off.

Right. So all the people on the stage, we basically, along with her storm off the stage and we get to see all these people looking at us. And pleading with us and talking to us. And there’s a crowd in the theater. There’s a crowd of people, uh, outside the theater. Who’s mobbing her for autographs all the way up until the point she gets into the car.

I mean, talk about a long, coordinated, serious tracking shot. That was really impressive. And it’s the beginning of a number of. Tricks that are gentle plays with point of view in this movie, because we have this point of view from her where they’re looking straight at us. And then later, like you said, we have this point of view that we later learned is obviously the killer as he’s going through the opera house during the performance and ends up in that box.

And then we even see that murder from his point of view, which is always a little unsettling, I think. Cause it’s like we’re murdering that person. He wouldn’t pails that guy on a coat hook. Several times like bash bash, bash, bash, bash. It’s pretty brutal as are all of the killings in this movie, really shockingly brutal.

But then later on, when we get into this girl’s apartment, She’s laying down, she’s having this dream. She, she has these trouble dreams. And in this dream, it’s always a woman getting murdered. Who’s lying on a bed and some broken down old kind of house. I think of it, probably not representative of reality, but more or less representative, kind of a dream reality.

Like your dreams always kind of mix up locations and people and places and things. But while this girl was getting murdered, again, it’s a POV through the killer’s eyes or is it her eyes? We see a woman who’s tied up, who’s kind of in the shadow, but clearly watching this murder take place and she wakes up with a start and she gets a phone call.

It’s one of those phone calls where a person says,

Craig: Oh, something stupid. Well, I mean, they don’t even say anything of consequence, but it’s like, it’s creepy because it’s your big debut. You got the Bart, like, yes. Tonight you make your dead be and lady Macbeth. Are you happy? Who’s speaking.

Todd: She gets that. So immediately, not only is she a little distressed that suddenly she’s been thrust into this lead character’s role.

But she’s having these trouble dreams. She gets a mysterious phone call and we don’t know what that, where that phone call came from. But of course we know we’re watching a horror movie and we saw, and we just saw somebody get killed. And then as the people wander into the room, we kind of get introduced to all the characters before that happens.

The camera pans across her room and pans up to the great, like the air vent in her room. And we see there is movement in her air vent. Like somebody is up in there watching her. Then she hears movement in her apartment and we get another one of these POV shots down the hall towards her. And your immediate reaction is, Oh my God, like, this is the killer.

No, it is her manager Mira. And so what our gender has done in all of this. Is, he has shown us a very unreliable camera. Like we don’t really know when we see these POV shots, what they’re going to be. We don’t know if they’re going to be just a third person thing, showing us a stylistically, something we don’t know if it’s going to be a POV from a killer.

We don’t know if it’s going to be a POV from another character. So every time you get these and there are a lot of them. The swooping POV shots in the movie. It’s always a little for me. Any was a little nerve wracking. Like, I didn’t know if this is the person creeping around the corner, or if this is the camera showing us the scene, or if it’s a person in consequent, you know, who’s not the killer, you know, walking around and creeping around.

I found that very unreliable and unsettling, but again, I was watching it on a screen. It’s almost like five feet wide. So, you know, maybe the cinematography had a. Slightly different effect on me than it did if you’re watching it on a computer in your, in your lap. Right. But I thought it was beautiful and I loved that.

And though, so then the question remains, right? As all these people come in, it’s her, there’s a director. Uh, his name is Marco. Uh, we learned that he is a former horror movie director and this is his first time directing a stage. And the character of Marco was written kind of based on our gentle himself.

And he’s a little mysterious. I think a little emotionless, a little too flat for what’s going on at times. And you wonder what’s going on in his head. There’s mirror, the agent, of course, there’s Betty. There’s a woman named Julia. Who’s constantly freaking out. Who’s their costume manager. Who’s pretty, highly emotional.

And over the top. And then of course, like you said, the stage manager who we later find out is her boyfriend, right? What was his name?

Craig: His name was Stefano. He was the only actor in the whole thing. That I recognized his name is William McNamara and this was his first movie, but then he did quite a few movies in the nineties.

He was in dream, a little dream, which is one of the two quarries movies that I really liked when I was growing up. And I was super excited to see him in this because I had a huge crush on him. When I was a teenager and then he got killed off first and I was really mad.

Todd: It was that why you hated this movie so much? Just because, well,

Craig: I guess I don’t know. It was also okay. So usually, you know, I’m used to watching these movies for this now, so I’m aware that, um, they filmed them and, and they. You would have to refresh my memory on the process without sound or whatever. And then somebody else, other people go back in and dub the voices

Todd: with the same people

Craig: or the same people.

But in, in the case of William McNamara, it was not his voice because I know his voice and it was nothing like the voice that. They dubbed over him, which was a little bit just odd. I mean, I got over it, but I knew that voice,

Todd: well, Marco was played by Ian Charleson and this was one of his last film roles might actually have been his last because he was in a minor motorcycle accident.

I think while this was going on and in the hospital, they were given some tea, they were doing some tests. And it turned out that he was HIV positive, which was something that he had suspected. And so apparently he fell ill only a year or two after this movie came out and he ended up dying, but he was really famous for chariots of fire just before this movie, he was one of the runners, one of the two main women guys in that movie.

So, yeah, he’s a bit of a, of a name at the time that this film came out. But I felt like this movie just had a lot of style and I wasn’t so impatient with it. Maybe just because I was in the mood for this kind of movie. When I sat down and watched it, I was totally taken in by the cinematography, all the swooping camera.

The camera is quite impressive during this movie. I mean, there are times where it’s point of view, shots of Ravens circling around, you know, in the movie theater and for me anyway, Anytime we knew something was about to be revealed and something was about to happen. And these Ravens play a huge part. A couple of times I felt like our gentle knew just how to extend it enough that it was annoyingly long.

Just show me what they’re seeing. Like, what are they seeing? Like where are they going to go? Who are they going to point out? What’s going to happen? It was just annoyingly long to really build up in me a real sense of suspense. And then, you know, after. Again, after all these people leave her back alone in her room, the camera again.

back up and we see there is still movement inside of that. Great. And then takes us to another point of view shot from inside. The great, so you get this feeling, this worry that this killer is like in her air, duct in her room, the monitoring her. So you never quite know. What’s going on. I think, and a lot of it has to do with the skillful use of this POV, which is also I think, quite beautiful to watch.

Craig: Okay. I don’t know. I, I mean, fine. Yeah. I, I certainly noticed that and I certainly wanted to who’s in the great, obviously it’s somebody, you know, you anticipate that it’s going to be the killer, but just everything is. Just kind of silly. Um, I don’t know. I, the, the parts, I guess, I mean, if, if there were parts of it that I liked were the murder scenes, um, I thought those were pretty well executed.

You know, the, the first one after her big debut, which is a huge success, even though the director gets panned in the reviews, you know, Everybody just thinks she’s amazing. This is her huge break, whatever she goes, we don’t see it, but there’s like a after show party that they go to. But then she goes home with Stefano, her boyfriend, and she like, it was just so scattered to me that I didn’t so many things happen that I just didn’t even understand.

And I didn’t understand what the point was like. We cut to them naked in bed in this opulent. Room. And she makes note of how fancy it is. And he’s like, Oh, well, my uncle’s super rich. And he lets me stay here sometimes. And I thought, Ooh, you know, that sounds like a clue. It’s not, I think that they just had to justify why they were in this ridiculously palatial room, but they’re laying there naked and she’s like,

Todd: I’m a disaster in bed. I don’t know why. Sorry. According to the legend of the same is incredibly horny. Really? They say they make love before they go out on stage and that way sort of relaxes their voice, you know, sweetens it up a little.

Craig: Oh yes. The old legend of the horny opera singer. I remember that one

Todd: soprano.

The horny soprano. I don’t know. I’ve never heard this legend before either, but, um, I mean they repeated a couple times in the movie where she, he says, or she claims or whatever that, uh, it’s, it’s a thing that Sopranos think that if they have sex right before they go out to perform that they’ll it’ll improve their voice or something.

I never heard that before, but. It was interesting

Craig: because it’s not a real thing. Um, if it is, I’ve never heard it either. And I’ve. Been singing in choirs and in musical performances my entire life.

Todd: You mean this didn’t come up in church choir one day?

Craig: No, it also didn’t come up. When I was in college, singing in multiple acquires with a bunch of other horses.

So

I, I don’t know, but anyway. Okay. So fine. So they don’t have sex cause apparently she’s frigid and he gets up to

Todd: she’s nervous. She’s nervous, Craig. She’s not just frigid. She just had this nerve wracking. She says, she’s not very good right now she’s had this nerve wracking experience and she has these dreams, these crazy ass dreams that are haunting her.

So everything’s kind of on edge right now for her,

Craig: whatever he was hot, she should have gotten over it.

Todd: I’m just jealous,

Craig: but he, okay. So he gets up and goes to make some tea and then the gloves grab her and. Like tie her up now. Okay. So I feel like his primary visual in this movie, like the one that he wanted us most to enjoy was this killer.

Always. He ties her up and then he takes needles. Lined up on a piece of tape and taped them on her lower eyelids so that she has to keep her eyes open. He says, if you try to close your eyes, you’ll just draw them. You have to watch everything. Now I will concede that this makes for a really unsettling, uncomfortable.

Visual of her, you know, with her eyeballs directly behind this like fence of needles. The problem that I had with it is that. You can’t not blink. So she’s going to have to close her eyes at some point, which she does, I guess, because her eyelid kind of gets bloodied in the blood, like runs down the needles, which looks cool or whatever.

And so the whole premise is, you know, he ties her up so that she has to watch him commit these murders. So. When Stefano comes back in, but again, it’s infuriating because Stefano comes back in, sees her tied up with these needles on her eyes. It’s like, what are you doing? Like, and he just stands there and looks at her for a minute.

Like,

Todd: what’s

Craig: going on? And then he starts walking towards her in the most casual way bef before, out of nowhere. And yet right in front of him, he gets stabbed in the neck with like this crazy knife that kind of looks like a spade. And then he gets stabbed to death, very brutally and it’s very bloody and it looks great.

Todd: Oh my gosh.

Craig: But the buildup to it. It was just stupid.

It just looked really good. It’s very bloody. It’s very brutal. Uh, you know,

Todd: the knife goes up through the neck, into his mouth. You see the point of the knife in his mouth. I’d never seen an image like that before.

Craig: That was, I didn’t, I didn’t see that, that, that lug, no, that was the luxury of your big. TV, but I did see, you know, and you don’t see this very often, which I think you should see more often at this guy.

The killer just keeps stabbing, stabbing, stabbing, and Stefano was putting his hands up in front of his face to try to shield himself. And he just keeps stabbing into and through his hands, which I thought was brutal and realistic. And the blood was very red and it was everywhere and it looked really good.

So. I liked that

Todd: part. Yeah. But then when it’s done, like you say, and I completely agree with you, the killer cuts her rope loose enough that she can get out and then he disappears. So she takes all everything off and, and goes running outside into the street and it’s raining outside and she goes to a phone and she does call the police.

So she says she calls the police and says she needs to report a murder that happened there, but she doesn’t give her name or anything. She hangs up.

Craig: Why

Todd: it’s a good question. Why?

Craig: Right. I just don’t understand, like, why didn’t she call the police from the house? Why, when they ask her, who is this? She’s she won’t tell them who it is.

It makes no sense. And then she goes, she’s wandering around in the rain and I don’t know, what is this supposed to be? Paris. I don’t know where it’s supposed to be. But a big city and her director just happens upon her and picks her up. And so, okay. I was like, well, maybe he’s the killer. I don’t know.

Maybe he’s following her. And that’s how he can find her fine. I can deal with that, but picks her up, takes her. Back where she tells him the story that he is completely unmoved by. Oh, Oh wow. Somebody they murdered Stefano. Whoa. Let’s read our reviews. And then like they have this cash, like they BR he brings up like, did you guys.

I think he asks if they had sex or something and she’s like, no, we didn’t because I’m frigid. And he brings somehow the whole Sopranos being super horny thing comes up again and they just casually talk about it. And he says, because he’s a film director. He’s like, Oh yeah, I always jerk off before I shoot a scene.

And then they just carry on with their conversation. Like.

Todd: Good to

Craig: know. Yeah.

Todd: Wow. See, none of this bothered me. I, I, you know, you said this to me before something traumatic, like this happens to you. How are you so sure. You’re going to act and feel logically afterwards. First of all, like I said, I don’t think Argento is terribly concerned about everything being a hundred percent realistic, but also if you just.

Finished boning, your significant other, and you walked into the other room to get something and you walked back in and they’re standing up and they’re a bit of a distance away, but they’re kind of tied up. You might think, what is this? I don’t think your first notion is going to be, Oh my God. Like while I was away for five minutes, somebody broke into the house, tied them up.

And uh, and now I’m in trouble, you know? Want to approach and see what kind of game they’re playing with you first. I think before you’d immediately freak out. That’s my sense. Okay. And same girl, you know,

Craig: I, you know, I that’s, that’s not particularly sexy that she’s standing there with needles in her eyes.

Well,

Todd: I’d say he’s far enough away.

Craig: No,

Todd: he’s too far away to really get a good glimpse of exactly what’s under her eyes or what that is. I thought that was more or less fine. And then she runs out of the house to call the cops is fine, you know, I mean, First instinct is to leave the place, maybe the killers there.

And then while you’re outside running, you’re like, Oh my God, I need to call the cops. You find a phone booth and you do it. And then you don’t report your name because you’re kind of confused. And maybe you’re a little concerned that you’ll get in trouble for this. And so you just kind of pause and maybe just hang up the phone because you can, and then she gets in the car with this guy and it’s so surreal, right?

Like she’s just been through this surreal, shocking experience. And she doesn’t, she says, I don’t want to tell you yet. Anything, and they have the sex talk before she actually tells him. That, um, you know, about the murder, the murder comes quite a ways away from this. So I saw this as a kind of, uh, a cooling down period.

I gave it a little bit more of a pass and I also thought maybe it was an interesting peek into her character. Like we already know she’s having these dreams and the whole time she’s having these dreams. One, one key thing that she says, uh, at some point it might’ve been before this might’ve been after is, I don’t know if these are just dreams or if they are reflective of something that happened to me when I was young.

Craig: Right. And, and she also says that all of what I saw referring to the murder, that she just witnessed all of what I saw. Happened in the dreams that I’ve had. So, right. So there’s obviously some connection and that does pay off in the end. So

Todd: I think

Craig: I just can’t, I can’t get over the casualness of it. Like she never, again really cares that presumably her boyfriend, unless they just hooked up this for the very first time this night, which is possible, but presumably her boyfriend, she doesn’t really care.

And then she tells the director and he doesn’t care. Like,

Todd: alright, I interpreted this two different ways to totally different from you when she is acting this way. I thought that’s really interesting that she’s acting this way either. She’s super emotionally distraught, or this has tapped into something of her.

Some numbness of her. If she was involved in these past experiences where people got murdered, was she somehow complicit in them? Did it change her as a person? Did it make her numb to the experience of violence? And I thought that this was maybe reflective could have been, could be reflective of that. So, whereas you thought, Oh, it’s dumb movie making.

I kind of looked at it as, wow. This is. A really interesting take on this girl, like what’s going on in her head and where is she from? And could she, if, if she has this past, like what does that have to do with what’s going on now? And is she somehow complicit in what’s happening now? I

Craig: don’t. Normally, I would say maybe I’m dense, but anytime I say that, you’re always like, no, you’re not, so, okay.

So fine. I’ll say I’m not dense, but

Todd: you’re so dead,

Craig: but those dreams or flashbacks or whatever they were, they were so lacking in context. I didn’t know what was happening at first. I didn’t even realize that it was dream. She was happy. I didn’t know. I didn’t know if it was dreams or if it was something else that was happening in a different location. I didn’t know, like, because it kept repeating and because of it more and more keeps getting added to it to the point that eventually we see a young girl, which it’s not too difficult to figure out that it’s her.

A young girl is present and witnesses these things fine. Then I started to figure out it was a dream, but then there was also all other kinds of crazy shit that would just pop up out of nowhere that I still don’t have any idea what it was all about. Like, like a pulsating brain, like that popped up. A bunch of times, and I still don’t have any idea what that was all about and just other weird imagery, like the pulsating brain and then like blood, like dissolving in water or something.

I don’t even know what it was and fine. Like I’m all for interesting imagery, but. I didn’t understand the context. It just felt, it felt like when you would go, this never actually happens to me, but I’ve seen it in movies. Like when you would go to a movie and some smart Alec projectionists would have spliced in just one frame of porn, into, you know, snow white or whatever, where it just pops up out of nowhere.

Without any context, really? And then it’s over. And you’re like, why, what, why the pulsating brain?

Todd: But the pulsating brain always happened right after the dreams or while she’s walking around and she holds her head. And then you see a pulsating brain and then she complains about how she’s feeling woozy or whatever, and the whole screen would pulse.

And we’d still hear that, that beating and that pulse. I mean, I didn’t think it was without context. I thought it was quite clearly within the context of her having these visions and or her having these headaches that were throwing her off kilter, whenever something was about to happen to her. And it seemed to be.

Pressure. I mean, it seemed to be almost predictive of something was going to happen to her, which I thought was also interesting. Like she seemed to almost have this. This notion that something was wrong, where she was and something bad was about to happen because this thing happened right before each of the murders, at least the first two or three, because the second murder is with Julia and she’s the costume designer.

And everyone’s bitching about her costumes. And she’s upset about the costumes. Apparently she and the director have a hate, hate relationship with each other.

Craig: We’re skipping important things.

Todd: No, no. Like the Ravens.

Craig: Yes. That happened before. That’s important.

Todd: Yeah. I’ve heard about to talk

Craig: about the Ravens.

Todd: Okay. She has a hate relationship with the director. The director hates the costumes and during the night we get a killer POV that comes onto the stage it’s nighttime and all these Ravens are in big cages. And, uh, this killer goes to unlock the costume, the glass costume. Case pulls out her costume and then get some scissors and proceeds to cut it to shreds at the same time the Ravens are watching.

And dude, I’m sorry, but I thought the scene was amazing. I thought the scene was so good that shows it from a number of isolating angles where we never w there’s a moment, I think where there’s a top down on the killer, but it’s so far away that we have no identifying details. Um, but we know by now that this person wears a hood over their face, like a black hood.

And the closeups on the Ravens, looking at him and he’s cutting the thing. At the meantime, the Ravens are distressed and they’re trying to get out of the cage, which they accomplish. And so the Ravens get out of the cage and they attack them, you know, Alfred Hitchcock’s bird style, which is, was a great scene.

It was like the shower scene from psycho. Put on a stage in the middle of the night, uh, just the way it was cut the Ravens attack them and they disappear.

Craig: But why, why, why did the Ravens attack him? Is there a reason? Is it just because he’s bad?

Todd: Yeah, I think because they

Craig: like, is it because they like the costume and he’s tearing it up?

I don’t, I don’t get it.

Todd: Well, the Raven handler or whatever says later that Ravens are very vindictive. They see, they remember. Right.

Craig: Yeah. And that’s true. This fun fact. I know this Ravens are very smart. In fact, Much like parrots and macaws Ravens can talk. They just don’t do it as much as those other birds.

Do you know that

Todd: you learn something new every day? Well, what I took from this was, I mean, there are Ravens flying all around the theater and on the stage during the production of this play, they’re the only ones who saw this murder happen up in that corner and could identify who that person was. So when they see that same figure coming in here and cutting up the costume, they’re trying to get out and attack it.

And so the Ravens chase him off and it’s a wonderfully filmed scene. I mean, the scene is so good, especially considering they’re dealing with live Ravens. This is not the age of CGI and it’s tans and it’s exciting. And then a light comes on from, you know, from above the night custodians or somebody is going to be coming in.

So the is trying to make an exit. And the meantime, the Ravens are after him in the, in the, he gets out through the door and the doors shut. And these Ravens just pile against the door, all of the beef settlement of, of this dude. I don’t know, man. I thought that was a great scene. I thought it made perfect sense to me.

Well,

Craig: I’m not going to say, I thought it made perfect sense cause I still don’t really understand, like, it makes sense later why the Ravens become aggressive, but in this part and less, they’re just pissed at being mistreated in general. But like the premise is that they. Because the actress, uh, the diva actress who got hit by the car, she threw a shoe at one of them or something.

So if they’re pissed about that, that’s fine. But the premise later on is that they hold grudges against particular people. And in this scene, they would have no reason to have a grudge against that person.

Todd: I think the Ravens are opera lovers, Craig. They hated Myra because she was always bitching about them.

And maybe she couldn’t sing very well in the very first scene when there’s that singing going on and the Ravens are constantly calling. I felt like they were mocking her.

Craig: Oh my God, are you being facetious?

Todd: I am not being facetious. I felt like they were mocking her. And then they fly after her and like whack at her so much that it drives her off of the set.

Right. The new girl comes on and the Ravens basically leave her alone. But this murder happens while they’re

Craig: flying or somebody throws one of them at her head,

Todd: which lands on her shoulder and sits there. Part of the performance.

Craig: No. She, after, after the big kerfuffle with the falling stage lights, she starts singing again.

Somebody from off stage throws a Raven at her head, it hits her in the head and she reacts to it and then

Todd: lights itself on her shoulder.

Craig: Fine. Cause that was part of the,

Todd: at that moment, a Raven was supposed to fly in and land on her shoulder. I mean, it’s live theater, you know, anything could happen. It didn’t look as graceful as it was supposed to.

But the Raven didn’t attacker K to me, up to this point, now the Ravens, they see that there’s trouble. They recognize this killer. He’s cutting up her costume. They’re well familiar with that costume. So they get out and they attack the heck out of him and drive him out. Alright.

Craig: Okay. So fine. So,

Todd: um,

Craig: so there’s like an investigator around investigating Alan was there on opening night.

Like they kind of throw away why he may have been there, like. The Stefano before he gets killed, this guy shows up at her door and says, I’m a big fan. And then it turns out he’s also a cop and she’s like, why would a copy here? And he’s like, Oh, well, a stagehand got killed. Isn’t that weird? He literally says that, um, And, uh, so this investigator is like investigating or whatever, and then she is still running around being crazy.

And then it comes to that next death scene, which is this the costume designer. And I liked her cause she was feisty. But as she’s trying to fix the costume that has been torn up, she finds a bracelet on it.

Todd: That’s weird.

Craig: And like wants to start, like she’s looking for a magnifying glass, cause there’s an inscription on it, but she can’t see it.

And she finally, after looking for a good. 45 minutes

Todd: finds the magnifying

Craig: glass and looks and says, Oh, there’s a date on it. Which if I can remember correctly is the only thing that we ever hear about that bracelet again, right?

Todd: Yeah, you’re right.

Craig: I mean, I kind of understand how it might be connected ultimately, but it’s never explained and.

Betty is around, you know, while this is going on. And the killer shows up again, while the costume, Julie lady is looking for the magnifying glass, the bad guy ties up, Betty again, puts the needles on her eyes and then attacks, uh, Julie or Julia or whatever her name was. And I liked this cause at least Julia fought back and there was kind of a scuffle.

And at some point she like, he throws. A clothes iron at her and that knocks her to the ground, but then she has the bracelet and she throws it off and he goes to get it. And she hits him over the head with, uh, the iron. And he’s unconscious. So she takes off his mask and is like, Oh my gosh, it’s you? And of course we don’t see anything, but right before he reaches up and, and throttles her and strangles her and then stabbed her many times with.

The scissors, but then again here, like, can you tell me what happened? I don’t understand. Like he like pried open her mouth.

Todd: Oh, you were watching this on way too tiny of a screen Craig or you were drinking or something like you missed a lot of details.

Craig: I am not above day drinking, but I would watch this in the middle of the day.

I was not true.

Todd: All right. Well

Craig: maybe while you

Todd: were checking Facebook, because you already decided that this movie was so boring, you miss, he wanted that bracelet back. So he had the bracelet in his hand this whole time and he’s holding it up. And at one point in their scuffle, The bracelet falls out of his hand and into her mouth and he reaches into her mouth to get it.

He can’t get it cause she’s more or less swallowed it. So he uses the scissors to cut into her throat to pull it out.

Craig: It’s that makes sense.

Todd: It’s so brutal. And it’s so in a way it’s a little comical to that, you know? Haha. The costume designer is snips away at all these things all day long and she’s getting snipped herself.

But it’s really, really brutal, really gross. And then this girl, uh, Betty has to see it all from inside. Where mannequins were previously sitting with costumes from previous shows, she’s inside this glass case, unable to do anything as she goes out really cool imagery. And that scene I thought was full of tension because you knew something was going to happen.

And there’s like gusts of wind coming in. And again, What are gentle does with the camera is so brilliant. Like you don’t know what you’re seeing, if it’s a POV or not, and you’re still not even sure if it’s a POV from the other character, because at one point it becomes a POV of Betty who wanders in. So you’re really off kilter watching these scenes from point to point, but not confused, not confused as to what’s going on, just confused as to what could possibly be happening.

And for me, the, I don’t know that that rarely ratchet up the tension.

Craig: Yeah. I. That’s fair,

Todd: beautiful setting. I mean, these are massive rooms in this beautiful theater that the attention to detail and the collar and everything is really nice.

Craig: But after all that happens, once again, she just leaves as, and, and walks out into the street.

I don’t know. I guess Julia is just laying in there dead. We never hear about her again, you know, everything just continues going on with, and I don’t know if I skipped something that you want to go back to. That’s fine. But the next thing that I remember is she is. Back in her apartment. She’s had these visions and headaches and whatnot.

So she puts in some eyedrops and we can see from her point of view that the eyedrops have blurred her vision. And so she can’t really see and somebody knocks at the door and I guess Mark had set up security for her or something.

Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. The, the, no, she meets with the inspector right after Julia. And she talks with him about it and, and he calls the police and she explains, uh, you know, what’s happened and, and all that.

And, uh, he says, she says somebody has been stalking me and he says, I’m worried for your safety. And he says, go up to the room, lock yourself in. I have them sending inspector. What was the guy’s name? Uh, inspector something or other is going to come up to your room and check on you, but then he’s going to be stationed to make sure and kind of guard stand guard and make sure you’re okay.

So that’s what she does. And I’m not sure. I don’t think this is her apartment. Maybe it’s her apartment or maybe it’s a room in the hotel. I’m not certain about it.

Craig: It’s where she’s staying,

Todd: because

Craig: it’s the same place. It is her apartment. We know what’s our apartment because members, she talks to somebody outside, outside who’s her neighbor or whatever.

And she’s got, um, a big sound system where she listens to like meditation slash opera tapes.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: She puts on, um, the opera from pretty woman. Uh, that was fun for me. Somebody knocks at the door and she’s like, Oh, I can’t see who is it? And he’s like, it’s the inspector? And she’s like, okay, come in. And he comes in and then she calls either.

She calls her manager, Maura, Mira, whatever doesn’t matter. And she’s coming over and she does come over. And Betty lets her in and Mira is like, Oh, I talked to the inspector downstairs and Betty’s like, what? You couldn’t have talked to the inspector downstairs. Cause he’s here in the apartment. Yes. And they go to look and he’s gone.

He’s not there. Like there still is a smoking cigarette in the ashtray, but he’s not there. And so then they freak out and. That leads up to what I thought was the most tense and interesting part of the movie. Um, first of all, all the lights go out. And from that point on everything is lit by the neon signs flashing outside, and they’re flashing in these bright colors, reds, blues greens, which is what I have come to expect from our agenda.

So that was fun. But I still am. Not exactly sure what happens here because they lock themselves in the kitchen and they see through the key hole in the door and the kitchen, whoever it was in the apartment gets a phone call, like the door phone, like the Intercom phone. And he says something like, okay, I’ll be right out.

And he leaves and he goes out and so they come out and then somebody knocks on the door and they’re like, it’s the inspector. And Mark mirror or whatever, you’re a

Todd: mirror. Like, look. She was like,

Craig: I don’t believe you, Mira. It’s

Todd: kind of a joke.

Craig: Okay. All right.

Todd: All right, go on. I get it.

Craig: She’s she’s skeptical.

She’s like, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you who you are. And he’s like, well, here I’ll show you my ID. And she looks down through the key hole and he kind of flashes an ID, but awkwardly. So she can’t really see it. And she says, hold on a second. I think I recognize you, show me your face again. And she puts her eye right up to the keyhole and I knew this was going to happen, but he, he lifts up his gun and shoots through the keyhole.

And it’s a great shot where you actually see the bullet travel through the keyhole, into her eye and through the back of her head. And that. Was an excellent shot. And I read that that actress was somebody who had worked with Argento in the past, but had like kind of officially severed ties with them.

Todd: They had a relationship.

Craig: Were they in a real, like a romantic relationship

Todd: just broken up. Yeah.

Craig: And he asked her to be in it and she didn’t want to. And she refused initially until he gave her the script and told her what he was going to do with this part. And she was fascinated. So she did it. And I don’t blame her because it probably was the coolest scene of the movie.

Todd: God, it was, it was wonder, I mean, again, in an age. Oh, CGI. These sorts of things don’t technically impress us anymore. But this shot of that bullet going through with the shattered glass of the keyhole and everything, and coming out the back of her head and she just falls straight, flat back on the ground.

Yeah, that was one for the age was right there. I’m going to be remembering that for a long time.

Craig: That was a good one. I liked that. But then, so like the killer. Is in her house, but somehow like the real inspector is also in there, but has been stabbed. Like she stumbles upon him as

Todd: he’s dying. He stumbles in

Craig: and then the killer’s there and she kind of runs away and gets away from him somehow.

And then out of nowhere you hear this kid’s voice. That’s like Betty, Betty, come here, I’ll help you. And it turns out that all along. This figure and the vent has been a little neighbor girl, just spies on people in the building. And we had kind of seen her before and we had heard a kid’s voice before, which was, which really threw me.

But nonetheless, I just felt like this was Deus ex mocking up like, Oh yeah. The kid that hides in the Vince will pull me. In and like, they, they crawl through the Vince and they crawl to her apartment and they hide and they get away, uh, ultimately, but it just seems so random. And I, and I read that in some edits of the film, they cut that scene entirely, which I think would be fine.

Yeah. But anyway, I don’t know. I mean, We’re getting close to the end.

Todd: So anyway, she goes back to the street because that’s every, that’s what she does. Every single time somebody gets killed and she goes outside

Craig: and she goes, she goes to the theater, right?

Todd: Yeah. She goes to the theater and meets Marco there he’s on the stage.

And she says to him, you know, he says what’s happened. And she’s like, you know, Mira just died. And again, like you say, his reaction is a little. A little blahzay about it, but again, I thought this is an interesting thing. Like why would he be so blahzay? I mean, he’s always been a little weird anyway and a little closed.

Anyway. He tells, she says to him, I’m here because this is the only place. Strangely enough here on stage is the only place I feel safe. And he says, well, there’s going to be a lot of noise here because I got, I got a bunch of stage hands making some changes to the play. I’m making a change to the play tomorrow, and that’s going to reveal the killer if he’s in the audience.

And she says, are you sure he’s going to be in the audience? And he says, yes, I’m positive. He’ll be in the audience. So then the next day we get the play. It’s a pretty cool set. Piece too. I mean, it’s this part of the play where there’s a long, tall staircase. Some women in sheets who are half nude, I’m just kind of flailing around, up on a balcony.

She’s descending on the stairs. And then she meets another guy coming up the stairs and they’re singing. And then the director’s like three, two, one now, and this, this John, the giant cage full of the birds crashes through the giant window at the back of the set with. The bird handler inside the cage. He kicks out the front of the cage after it lands on the ground and all the birds go flying into the theater and they’re circling around.

And so instantly you’re thinking, okay, the birds know who the killer is. The birds are going to find the killer and this scene is so cool. It is at first it’s just one swooping around and you can tell it’s like, he’s looking, it’s like, he’s going around the whole theater at the same time. We’re getting a bird point of view.

And I don’t know how they pulled this off. I

Craig: don’t either, but it was really cool.

Todd: Oh, it’s swoops around this theater and it dives down and the. Theater’s packed of people, but it’s well lit and it’s just swooping around. And I mean, I was like, who is it going to be? Who is it going to be? The tension, the scene was incredibly good.

And the more birds come out, it’s noisy. And he’s got that soft, hard rock music going in the background, like he likes to do in these scenes, which is a total contrast, by the way, to the opera music we’ve been getting in the back of the background of a lot of the movie. But when these kills happen, it’s back to his, you know, like sort of goblin ask Daniel.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You’d like intense, heavy metal, which I love, I just identify with that. So, yeah. And then it dives down on Allen, who was the inspector and starts pecking his eyes out.

Craig: It doesn’t bother me that it’s him. It bothers me that there was no indication. That it could be. That is the, like, if it’s going to be a who done it, I want there to be some clues, even if I don’t pick up on them, I want to be able to think.

Oh, okay. Yeah. That makes sense. It’s just totally out of the blue that it was this random inspector. Or at least it seemed out of the blue to me. I don’t know. Maybe I missed something, but anyway, it is him and it picks out his eyeball and eats it, which was funny, which

Todd: was awesome.

Craig: But he’s not dead.

Todd: He’s not dead.

And this is a part I don’t quite get because the next thing we see is of her just stumbling, holding her head, going into the dressing room, like it’s all over. And I think probably her assumption was that somebody out there wrestled that guy to the ground. I mean, half the crowd is plot plowing out of the theater.

They’re scared, but I think her assumption is it was taken care of. And the director comes in, Marco comes in and says, Wow. That’s really weird. It was the inspector. Huh. And then Marco gets whacked, I think, from behind. And, uh, the killer is right there. It’s as though his eye is, is not a gaping hole bleeding from his face.

Uh, he’s remarkably on point and has a test to do, and he just picks her up and he takes her away into a part of the theater, which is by now pretty much emptied out. Takes her into a room. What it must be like the script room or something. I don’t know.

Craig: I don’t know what your papers, all show

Todd: newspapers behind a great any ties her to the chair.

And this is an I kind of saw, I kind of figured out the motivation by this point of whoever the killer would be. I realized it could be about anybody, but I kind of figured out it had something to do with. It’s probably the same person who in her past those dreams are probably real. And by now we actually know that this woman who was watching everything was her mother, because she says something and one of the last dream sequences.

Um, to her, we hear that she, uh,

Craig: but in the dream sequence, all she says is, is that you mommy? And there are, there are two women, there’s the one that’s being killed. And the one that’s like, kind of tied up watching. So I didn’t know if it was her mother who was being murdered or she was

Todd: always watching,

Craig: but it turns out, and I don’t know, it just seems convoluted to me, but it’s fine.

It turned this guy. Alan says to her, I was in love with your mother. I was infatuated with your mother.

Todd: She taught me a little game doctoring

Craig: only then.

Todd: I was

Craig: a slave and she was a sadist. Like, I feel like he says to me, like, she wouldn’t let me touch her, but, um, she liked to watch me hurt other people. So I guess that he would, you know, go get these other women and then torture them in front of Betty’s mom. And that they like got off on

Todd: it or whatever.

Yeah. Basically this whole psychosexual thing.

Craig: So anyway, I guess the point is he’s trying to recreate this with her. That’s why he’s making her watch these things. Um, so, okay. But then, so he’s got her tied up and then. He sets the room on fire. Well, first he douses everything. Like it’s all these papers lining the walls.

He douses everything with gasoline that conveniently happens to be there.

Todd: Well, he planted it there,

Craig: I would say, okay, you have probably all right. But then he gives her his gun and she’s blindfolded. She’s tied up in a chair and blindfolded and he gives her his gun and he instructs her where to point it.

Um, and tells her to shoot, which she does, but not before he strikes a match and she shoots and he falls over dead, but he’s already struck this match. So the whole room catches on fire and there’s, uh, you know, a two minute scene of her trying to get out and it kind of looks like she’s not going to, but I was just in my mind thinking, all right, hurry up, Mark, come rescuer.

Um, and he does, uh, and they get out and like, that’s the end? Hurry. Everything’s fine. And it cuts to apparently what is, I don’t know, some time later, uh, and she and Mark are together. Eh, some light mountain retreat,

Todd: I guess

Craig: they shit chat or something. I don’t know. And then she goes outside and she’s standing out there and she notices a helicopter fly over.

And then he sees on the TV. That the case of the opera killer or whatever, there’s a new development. And it turns out that the remains of the guy who burned up were not actually remains at all, but just a stage dummy. And so that guy is still at large and Mark screams out the window. Well, first he like walks into the kitchen and sees that their housekeeper has been murdered.

And so then he screams out the window at her. He’s not dead. He’s here, run, run. And so she takes off running. And Alan appears behind her chasing after, and he’s chasing her, but then somehow Mark appears and tackles him and Alan kills Mark. Right.

Todd: He basically stabbed him again very brutally while she’s standing behind watching kind of unable to do something or.

In my mind, I was thinking unwilling to do something, or I don’t know, this is kind of her Mo right? Like she does this a lot and he turns around and the way that she basically saves herself is she tells him sort of out of the blue. You’re right. I’m just like my mother, I really enjoy watching. And here come with me.

We need to run away before somebody discovers the body. Uh, so he’s thrown off by this, but it’s kind of fulfilled his fantasy and he runs off. And as he bends down to do something, she picks up a rock and bashes him over the head a couple times, just in the Nick of time, because then a whole bunch of cops and people come running through the woods.

And subdue him. And as they’re taking him away, she yells after him. I was just lying. I’m nothing like my mother, I’m absolutely nothing like my mother. And she turns around. That’s all I did look in the grass, like smiles and dives into the grass and crawls through the flowers and sees. A lizard, who’s trapped under a branch and looks at the lizard.

And I thought, well, this could go one of two ways, but no, she frees the lizard and says, go, you’re free. You’re free. Ah, and then collapses into the beautiful grass in the Swiss Alps and credits. Yeah. And I mean, I think the ending’s kind of stupid and apparently a lot of people did to awry in which distributed this in the U S really tried to get our Gentile to remove that ending from the movie, but he refused.

So that’s the ending we have. I mean, I understand what it is psychologically. And I think, again, it kind of goes back to. Her experiences as a girl, right? Like she’s sort of robbed of her childhood. She’s been sort of stunted by these experiences that she doesn’t really understand or is only beginning to.

Come to terms with, and she wants nothing more than to recapture some of that. And so that’s kind of why she gets a little loony there at the end and his life for rolling around in the flowers and playing with the animals. But it’s kind of dumb.

Craig: Well, yeah, I mean, it was just as dumb as the rest of it to me.

I don’t know why. One thing I didn’t understand. Uh, was when the, the police were taking Alan away. He said, but I didn’t do anything wrong. I just wanted to free their souls. W did I miss something or is that just a random throw away line,

Todd: random throw away? I think he’s just screaming, yelling

Craig: my favorite line in the movie besides I always jerk off before I shoot a scene, um, was at one point Mark, he’s got like this girlfriend who’s I think a model or something, and she’s only in it.

For a little while, but, uh, she says to him in casual conversation, you’re a sadist. Everyone I know says the same thing. And he says that must be very boring for you. And I thought that was hilarious. Everybody I know says the same thing. That must be boring for you. Oh, I hope I have the opportunity to use that line someday.

Todd: Those are my two

Craig: favorite parts.

Todd: Wow.

Craig: Other than that, I thought it was crap. I didn’t like it at all. I didn’t understand really character motivation on the part of the heroine, her actions and reactions were nonsensical. I have no idea if that was because of the writing or the direction of the performance.

Uh, Argento said that the actress who played Betty was the most difficult actress he ever worked with in his career. Um, I don’t know if that had anything to do with it. I am not willing to write off this genre of film, just because I really disliked this one, because some of the other ones that we’ve watched, I have enjoyed quite a bit and I’ve been really intrigued by the mystery.

Um, but, uh, even if I had been intrigued by the mystery of this one, it still would have been a letdown because it just felt like an insult, like a slap in the face, like, okay, here’s. Who the killer is. Here’s the big reveal I’ve given you nothing. There have been no breadcrumbs along the way that you could have pieced this together.

Just accept that. And I, I just thought it was lazy and, and, uh, I didn’t like it, but I’m glad that you did. I really am.

Todd: You really wanted a mystery we can solve. Right. I guess you were really watching the movie looking for clues to who this guy is and why wouldn’t you? Right. Cause it is a mystery. I’m not all that bothered by the fact that I had no chance of figuring it out because I thought the movie did a pretty good job for the first time in a long time of really, it could have been almost anybody.

Right. Like anybody who was alive could have been the killer from some unknown guy, whatever, to somebody really, really close to her. And often movies are dropping all these red herrings and trying to throw deliberately throw you off the path. And I just thought this movie had such a big cast. You know, it’s such a thing like you’re putting on this giant play and there are all these people interested in fricking Myra could have been her cause she was super pissed off, you know, that she got replaced, uh, in the, in the show and throws a, like a wine bottle at the screen at one point when she sees a Betty, you know, performing on television.

So yeah, I was fully expecting her to come back and end up being the killer somehow, you know, and it didn’t that part didn’t really bother me. I just. It was a ride that I enjoy taking and it moved me emotionally. It was genuinely tense in certain parts. I thought that as a psychological drama, all of the things that we talked about made pretty good sense.

Even though when you’re watching them from afar, you go, why is she making that choice? Why would she do that? Why isn’t she showing this emotion? Again, I was just thinking, yeah, that’s this woman, like something is really messed up with her and we’re about to figure out what it is. And we did, you know, by the end and in that sense, that original ending does.

In a very heavy handed and movie, like way hammer home. That point, this girl is still messed up. She was messed up as a kid. She was taken through these traumatic experiences of a kid. Was she shunned house shut out of her mind. They get recreated with her. She’s put through this horrible ordeal. She finally gets the best of this guy and she really wants nothing more than again, to be able to shut all this out and get back to that childhood that she lost.

It’s not perfect, but I thought emotionally and visually, and the cinematography was just beautiful. I’m sorry. But I’m like diametrically opposed to you that I feel like this is probably the best Argento movie I’ve I’ve seen yet. I mean, I’d put it above the spirit. It makes more sense than any of the movies of his we’ve seen so far, you know, they were way more dreamlike and had way more convoluted.

Um, DAS ex Mokena kind of oddball things going on. Um, then I felt like this movie had, I felt like this was probably the most accessible one we’d seen. And then on top of all that the brutality was just, it was well executed and not in the cheap way, in a very, in a way that did not glorify the violence, but made it really genuinely unsettling and.

And I like that. And I think there’s a theme there as well. You know, this it’s all about seeing her mother, seeing these murders and getting off on it. Uh, this girl being forced to watch these murders just like her mother liked to get off on. And then here we are the audience through the killer’s POV, also watching every grizzly gory detail of these murders and it implicates us to, in a way, you know, how are we any different really from these folks kind of getting off on watching this movie.

And I think the brutality of those scenes. Makes that a little more clear and more uncomfortable for us. Than it would have been otherwise.

Craig: Yeah. That makes sense.

Todd: Well, thank you for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. Keep those requests coming. We’re going to be doing some more in the next coming weeks.

We hope that you’re staying safe out there. And also that you’ll reach out to us. If you want, just find us online search for two guys and a chainsaw. We’ve got Facebook page. You can leave comments. There are we have a YouTube channel, please subscribe and check us out there. Share us with the friends, spread the love, and we will see you again next week until then I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two guys and a Chainsaw.

This week’s request is a somewhat obscure time-tripping movie that we never would have found on our own. Thank you, Darren, for pointing us in the direction of Triangle – a solid thriller that we enjoyed a lot.

Assuming, of course you wanted us to review 2009’s Triangle and not 2016’s The Triangle…

Triangle (2009)

Episode 219, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: and I’m Craig,

Todd: as you all know, we are continuing with our requests. We’re just plowing right on through the list. And Darren messaged us quite some time ago about a movie called the triangle. So we decided to sit down and watch a movie. Unfortunately, the movie that we’ve found and that we did is called triad.

It’s also a, a thriller horror movie, but we’re. Highly suspicious that this might not actually be the movie that Darren requests good. Now that we reflect upon it. So, yeah, Darren, you’re out there listening. We supremely apologize. If you didn’t want us to see 2009. Triangle. And instead wanted us to see the triangle from several years later.

So anyway, who cares? We’re watching, we watched the movie trying go from 2009. And that’s the one we’re going to talk about today. Yep. Greg, I have to be completely honest with you. I don’t really know how we’re going to talk about this movie. It’s perfectly fine. And actually it’s a, quite an interesting movie.

I enjoyed it. I loved watching it. However, it’s a difficult movie to discuss and talk about because the plot itself is kind of convoluted. It loops around and you know, our normal, uh, podcast scenario is here. We sit and we kind of talk linearly through the plot. And then we talk about the actors and the characters and what happens.

And, but this movie is not so linear. So it’s going to be more tricky. Uh, I think to follow our regular format, we’re just going to have to, I don’t know, like freestyle at this time around

as

Craig: opposed to our, you know, usually tightly scripted to scale

Todd: that’s right. Normally it’s just very extremely academic planned out, you know, discussion. Uh, yeah, exactly. So, uh, That’s basically the same. Yeah.

Craig: I know what you’re talking about. I think that the reason that it’s difficult to talk about is because it’s going to be near impossible, if not impossible, to just kinda.

Blow blow our wad right from the beginning, because yeah.

Todd: You don’t want to blow your water right at the beginning.

Craig: Usually not. I mean, it depends, but, uh, right, because the like, alright, here’s what I’m going to say. I liked this movie. I thought that it was clever and I thought that, uh, you know, it. If you care enough to kind of think about the writing and the inspiration.

Um, I think it’s actually very clever, but I will also say, and I’m interested to see if you thought the same thing. I found it pretty predictable. Like didn’t you kind of know what was going on from the beginning. Like not from the very beginning. But like

Todd: 15, 20 minutes in. Yeah. I don’t know. We seen this concept before.

And so it was predictable or was it just the sort of thing like, Oh yeah, I get what’s happening. And so, I mean, like, I might not know exactly how it’s all going to pan out at the end, but I kind of feel like, I know it’s all going to cycle back to the beginning and that’s how we’re going to be left

Craig: right now.

Also again, in all fairness, you know, uh, yes, this, we was a request, but I also had recently seen this on a list. I read all these lists on these, a horror website and, um, this one was under, um, Horror movies that have something to do with time travel or, or, uh, you know, some, some time alternate dimensions or something, right?

Yeah. So I kind of knew going in that there was going to be that element to it. And maybe if I hadn’t known that, then I wouldn’t have picked up on it so quickly. But, um, there were also not so blatant that it was lazy, but there were some like major clues, like, as I was watching, I was like, Oh, You know, little, little things that like, I felt like, Oh, okay.

Yeah. I, I know what’s going on, but you know, I think we can kinda, you know, break it down at least because from the beginning, at least it seems. Pretty much like a linear story. It’s a little bit confusing in the beginning. The movie, um, was filmed in Australia, right? I think Queensland,

Todd: yes. Yeah. It’s a British Australian film.

Craig: Yeah. It’s supposed to be set in Florida. Uh, but, uh, filmed in Australia and the star of the movie is Melissa George, who is recognizable. She’s actually done quite a few horror movies. She was in the Amityville remake. Uh, she was in Teresa’s, which I remember being pretty good. She was in 30 days of night and her name is Jess, the movie, and the movie opens up kind of ambiguous.

She’s. Uh, comforting a young boy, um, and saying to him, you just had a bad dream. Sometimes when you have bad dreams, you know, it makes you think that you saw bad things, but you really didn’t. And then it picks up with her kind of doing some mundane things, um, around the house, eventually getting in the car and.

Driving away, but yeah, I mean, I was just noticing little things, right. The beginning, like she, she, she hears her doorbell ring and she comes out and there’s nobody there. Uh, and I noticed right away that her address, whatever street she’s on her house number was two 37. Uh, and immediately that number. I was like, why do I know that number?

Uh, and I remembered pretty quickly that that’s the room. From Cru Kubrick’s the shining, the DNI is not supposed to go in. And that number pops up a couple of other times, and there are other little subtle nods to the shining. So I was already kind of excited about that. Cause I liked that the doorbell rings.

There’s nobody there. She sees a note on her refrigerator that says, Greg. The triangle Harbor, um, eight 30, uh, and then you just see her driving away. We ended up at this boat and all these people congregating on this boat. There’s a Sally, who’s this red headed girl. Uh, and, and I say, girl, these are all adults.

Downey is her husband. Um, Heather is Sally’s friend who she’s brought along to try to set up. With the captain of the boat named Greg, who is her friend. And then Victor played by a very young Liam Hemsworth. The last person to show up is, is Jess. Uh, our main character when she shows up, she’s kind of out of sorts so much so that they comment on it.

Like, it’s a thing, like why is she acting weird? And, um, Greg has the one who has invited her. I think we kind of find out, yeah. That he knows her. Like she’s a waitress in a diner that he frequents and they’re just kind of starting, you know, this kind of flirtatious, you know, relationship or whatever, but he’s invited her to go out sailing and he greets her.

Hey, what’s the matter you got nothing to apologize for it. What is it? Are you okay?

Well, listen, we don’t have to go today if you don’t want to.

Sure. Okay.

She was supposed to have brought her son who presumably is the kid that we saw her with earlier. She was supposed to bring him with, but she hasn’t. And she says that he’s at school. And we find out that even though it’s a Saturday, it’s feasible that you would be at school because he has special needs.

And he goes to a special needs school. That’s open seven days a week. So it starts out and then they go sailing. They give us five minutes. So getting to know who these people are. And all we really learned is that Sally and Downey are kind of douche bags, like juice bags. Just kind of douche bags. Um, Heather, we don’t really know anything about at all.

Um, and Victor is like, you know, this young vagabond that Greg has taken in and Greg seems like a nice guy, that’s it? That’s like all of the characters

Todd: yeah.

Craig: In about five minutes. And then, you know, it’s beautiful. They’re sailing. It’s great. And then all of a sudden the wind dies and immediately after that, This huge, scary storm rolls in.

And right before the storm hits, Greg tries to call the coast guard and kind of gets in touch with them, but it’s fuzzy. But also at the same time, he hears a distress call from a woman. But. The receptionist so bad that he just kind of hears this woman’s saying help. And that’s all there is to the big storm comes.

It’s scary. And the boat capsizes and all of that is the buildup to then what becomes the central plot. And I just made that sound terribly plotting. It’s really not because it all happens so quickly, but yeah, I wanted to get through it because that’s, you know, when we get to. This central action.

Todd: It’s very economical in the beginning.

You know, I mean, we, we get to hear their relationships quite openly because, um, uh, one of the characters actually just basically spells out all of their relationships.

Craig: Victor, he’s staying with me for a bit, got into some trouble at home. He had to get away. I found him sleeping behind the store at the Harbor.

You know, we got talking and now he lives here just like that. You let him use her in. Three rooms. I can’t sleep in the mall and Downey I’ve known him since I was a kid, Sally, his wife. I know her from high school. I dated her for like four days in the eighth grade. So technically she’s

Todd: my ex it’s economical because we don’t really need to know.

The movie is very plot driven. It is, this is not a character driven movie. It’s all about this twisting web of plot. At the beginning, I was very much like, Oh, taking some notes and like looking at okay, can I remember their name and whatever. And then as the movie went on, I realized there’s no way I can keep track of this.

In fact, there was really no way I could keep track of the plot itself. It was so twisted and so convoluted that I feel like this movie requires two or three watchings. If you care enough, to kind of understand how everything connects together, it’s not like primer, you know, it’s not like, hi. Level thinking that requires lots of deep thought, but it’s just such intricate plotting because what we end up with is a story that is a time loop.

It’s one layer of activities kind of layer it on top of each other through time. If you’re really worried the first time you watch this movie, if you’re really worried about decoding it and figuring out exactly what’s going on, because you think you’re going to miss something, I think I would say to you, like, don’t worry.

Like just, just watch the movie, take it in. And by the end of it, you’ll kind of you’ll know what’s going on. And none of the little details are really gonna matter.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. That’s kind of in a nutshell. I mean, they, they they’re, they’re stranded. The boat has capsized it, uh, they, they enter some kind of stuff.

Craig: One of them is out from the storm. Heather is gone. We never see her again. We don’t, we don’t know what happened to her. Presumably she drown. We don’t know.

Todd: Yeah, but that’s a bit of a right though. Where’s Heather. And, uh, so they ended up on the upside down part of this boat, just sitting around and a giant ocean liner kind of comes into view.

Our main character. Jess thinks she sees somebody up on the dock. But it’s not very clear cause the sun’s behind it. And uh, they ended up boarding this ship and it’s deserted, but the lights are on and it’s, you know, it’s a, it’s a floating ship out in the middle of the sea. The ship itself is called the

Craig: ALS and of course, right away, you know, I saw that it was named that and I’m like, that’s gotta be significant.

So, okay. So I paused the movie and then I paused the movie and I’m Googling it. And I find out that, uh, ALS was in. Greek mythology, the divine keeper of the wind. He was the King of a mythical floating islands called Eylea or something like that. And, and his job was to keep the violent storm winds locked inside the caverns of his Island, and he would release them when the gods called for destruction on man.

And I’m like, okay, well, that’s cool. That makes a lot of sense. And then I was mad at myself because they explain all that later.

I did, I didn’t the time to do research because they were going to lay that all out eventually. Anyway.

Todd: Yeah. You dumb ass. What are you thinking?

Craig: Another interesting thing that I didn’t find in my research, but what they said, and it’s true because I double checked it is that also in the mythology, ALS is the father of

Is the guy that had to, you know, constantly push the rock up the Hill and then it would just go down the other side. And he was, you know, faded to just have to do that for eternity, which in the end is actually really cool because it ties into the movie. So well, in fact, this, uh, you know, all of this  I feel like.

The mythology was their jumping off point for the movie, but I didn’t really put it all together until the end, but then when it ended and I was reading about connections and stuff, I’m like, that’s actually really clever. So I, I, I do have to give them props for kind of the cleverness of the concept.

Todd: Well, the director. Of the movie is also the writer. Uh, his name is Christopher Smith. He’s a British guy and, uh, actually he’s written and directed. Most of the movies you’ve done, which is not a lot, uh, before this movie he did to like four other film, little, two shorts and one of their film. And then after that, he did a few more films, some episodes of.

Some television productions. He’s got some stuff right now, uh, in post production as well. Uh, this is the kind of movie that comes from a writer director. I think, you know, it’s, it’s very high concept and clever, and like you said, it, it really takes us mythology as a jumping off point. Point has a lot of touch points in there.

So, you know, it’s, it’s not the kind of movie that you think you write the script and you send out in the market and see how it goes. You sort of have to believe in this film in order to produce it. I think. And so, yeah, I, as a director, yeah. I think he was quite competent, you know, the, the, the, the cinematography in this movie doesn’t call attention to itself.

It’s just good. It’s just, yeah, it’s just fine for what it is. Right. The writing of this movie is. Like I said, it’s, it’s heavily plotted. It’s short on character, but it’s not like these characters are people that are not convincing and everything’s fine. Everything’s fine.

Craig: Well, what I, what the character don’t matter so much, except for we follow Jess so closely.

Like it really is about her. Yeah. On its face. It looks like it’s an ensemble piece because there’s so few actors in it, but really the other characters. Are pretty inconsequential. You really are following Jess through this whole thing. And she is the one on that you are, well, I guess I shouldn’t say you that I was concerned about that I was interested in getting to know, and I thought that the movie also did something really clever in endearing me to her just because.

I, you know, she’s in all this peril, she’s confused. She doesn’t know what’s going on. She’s figuring out things as we’re figuring them out, maybe a little bit slower than us by the end of the movie, you know, just as your girl and, and you’re rooting for her. And then at the end, it pulls the rug out from under you a little bit.

And I thought that. Was really interesting too, but that’s getting way ahead of myself.

Todd: Well, they board them and they wander around and they, uh, you know, somebody says something about the mythology of the character, blah, blah, blah. And they’re just wandering around. And the point of this is that Jess is having this constant deja VU.

Craig: Right.

Todd: I know I’ve been here before. I just feel like I’ve been here before. They’re seeing. Somebody every now and then darting away, like there’s movement down the hallway or something. And then they even find Jess as keys. Like her actual keys are right there on the boat. She finds them. She’s like, these are my keys.

And they’re like, no way. No, no, no. This is like my house key. So my car key is whatever.

Craig: Sure. My kid in it clears me their mind.

Todd: Don’t argue with me on that.

So there’s this. And then, you know, they wander around and they come into a bathroom where if they follow some blood, there’s like a blood trail.

Craig: Well, first they go like to the dining hall. Not only is this ship deserted, it’s not decrepit it, you know, it looks like everybody. Disappeared. Like when they’re in the dining hall, like there’s like a banquet set up like a buffet with, you know, and all the food, food is fresh and looks great.

And then they decide to split off. Victor goes off on his own because just saw somebody like when they were all in the dining hall, she saw somebody, like you said, kind of dart off. You know, around a corner or whatever. So Victor goes off and looks right him and then Jess and Greg go off together, leaving the married couple Downey and Sally in the dining room and Jess and Greg.

Yeah, I think maybe you’re right. Maybe they follow some blood or something, but it leads them to a particular room. Guess what? Room room? Two 37.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And they go in there and, uh, the, the water is running. They can hear the water running in the bathroom. And they go in and the bathroom’s all steamed up and written on the mirror.

Again, a total, another throwback to the shining written on the mirror is go to the theater in blood. And so they go out, I feel like at this point, Jess and Greg kind of have a little argument because she keeps saying there’s something not right. Every corner we turn. I am having deja VU. I know this place and he’s like, no, you’re crazy.

You know, it’s just there. The people on board are just messing with us or something. And, but they have this little, you know, mild disagreement and she goes off and she runs back into the married couple and, and the married couple says something like I thought we were supposed to meet in the theater. And in my mind, I thought, what.

I don’t remember anybody ever saying anything about meeting in the theater, but, uh, apparently, you know, they’re going to, or whatever. And then I don’t know. I feel like, like you said, the plot loops around so much. I feel like I kind of am getting lost of those to go off the Mary to go off. And then Jess, I think runs into to Victor in the dining hall again.

But Victor is all like, Bloodied and acting weird, any attack, sir, and starts, uh, throttling her. And she’s like trying to fight him off. And she reaches around the back of his head and sticks her finger in a hole in the back of his head and this, you know, this whole time, we’re like, we have no idea what’s going on.

Why is he attacking her? Why does he have a hole in his head?

Random. Yeah. And so she gets away from him. She gets away from him. She runs to the theater and in the theater, she finds the married couples, standing over Greg, who is shot and killed Guild. And the married couple accuses her of doing it. And she has no idea what’s going on. And then all of a sudden, somebody starts taking shots at them, kills bowls of the married couple and just runs off on our own.

And now she’s being pursued by this mysterious gunman in like coveralls

Todd: and burlap sack over the head.

Craig: And there’s a chase between them. And like this person is shooting at her and eventually they come face to face and they’re fighting and battling out and battling it out. And this is the moment where I figured it out because they’re fighting.

And this person of course, is, you know, costumes from head to toe. So you can’t see any distinguishing features. You don’t know who it is, but at one point, Jess knocks this person down and I noticed out of the corner of my eyes and I paused it and I, I went back just a few frames and I looked. And I saw they’re wearing the same shoes.

They have the same feet at that point. I knew it’s her. Somehow she’s fighting herself. Eventually she, you know, they fight and, and she gets this mask to silent, like on the, the ledge of the boat and the assailant. You can, it’s muffled so you can barely hear it, but they’re like, you have to kill them. You have to kill me.

That’s the only way to get out of this and just does hit her with something and knocks her over. And, and, and so at that point point, I felt like I knew what was going on and it turns out I’m right. But I don’t really remember how she figures it out. You,

Todd: it takes a little bit of time and this is where, you know, I didn’t take notes during this movie and I kind of wish I had, I think she yells at this point.

And at this point she looks over after she’s knocked this person overboard and she sees them on the overturn boat. Oh, that’s right on the water,

Craig: including herself,

Todd: including herself. Right. And that is who like, so what, when they were out on the water, on the boat, when they looked up at the boat for the first time and thought they saw somebody up on the dock, it’s actually her.

She’s turns away. And at that point, I mean, you know, you figured it out, I don’t know, 30 seconds before, pretty much anybody else would figure it out. So there, this boat is, I guess, stuck in time in some way, she’s on some kind of time loop. And because this person said to that, to her. You’ve got to kill everybody.

It’s the only way to get off the boat. She’s got this idea stuck in her head. And so now, you know, everything has seemed weird about what we just saw has an explanation because in the time loop it’s now her with this realization that she’s in a time loop going through and doing things

Craig: well. And I thought that this was cool because basically what happens is we see this the last 10 minutes of the movie that we just saw.

But now from her new perspective, she is observing what she just experienced, um, from behind the curtain. And, uh, so you know, all, when they thought that they were seeing people darting around corners and stuff, it was her, it was always her. Um,

Todd: And the person who dropped her keys, it was her keys. It just fell out of her pocket while she was darting around the sign.

Yeah, she cornered is Victor, right. Victor comes around him and she started talking to him and she’s trying to tell him that something weird is going on, whatever, and they’re chatting and she, she kind of grabs him and. More or less like, uh, in a, in a way just to emphasize like, look, stop. Like here’s what I’m saying is she, she kind of chucks him against a wall outside on the dock of the boat.

It turns out that she had accidentally thrown him against a, there was like a hook on the wall. It was just a hook that was holding like some life lifesavers or something. And, but. That was what the hole in the back of his head was, is that she had accidentally impaled him on this thing. Then we’re clear, it’s clear what’s going on.

Right. You know, he’s been in paled, she’s running into the ship and she finds it. Here’s the thing, like she starts to find duplicates of everything. Yes. Duplicates it for outfits. This is kind of interesting, actually, it’s, it’s a neat concept that this time loop, like somebody dies, then they die in this one spot.

But because this time loop has happened, I dunno, you know, presumably 12 times before they’re like 12 corpses in this spot where she’s dropped them.

Craig: And so the same person.

Todd: Exactly. And so you’re seeing the fact that this is not only is she replaying what she’s done, but like before this moment that we’re experiencing, now she has replayed through this loop a lot of times with the pretty much the same result, which seems very fatalistic.

Right. And at this point in the movie, you’re kind of watching, at least I was thinking, my God, like, how is this movie gonna end? Because clearly. Every time this loop has happened, it’s pretty much been the same result. Like the same person has died in the same place. How are we going to get out of this?

And, and I think at that moment, you know, I was very intrigued, uh, at the, at the concept of the film, even though I’d figured out, you know, what was going on,

Craig: the kind of the, the paradox with these time travel or time loop movies is. At some point, I started to get frustrated with her because I felt like, you know, what’s going to happen.

well, you’ve already been through this once you were just on the other side of it. So like, if you continue to play it out the way that it played out, the first time, it’s just going to be the same. And there were other times when I thought, Oh, she’s changed it. Cause like, Uh, at one point she ends up in the ballroom and she entered Victor.

From attacking the other, her. And so there are two of them, there are two of her there and he sees that there are two of her there. And at first I was like, you know, if it, if, if she keeps changing things, I thought, okay, maybe she changes things. The outcome will be different. The determination that I came to is that she really wasn’t changing things.

It’s just that she didn’t realize, and it didn’t even occur to me. She finally figures out that the boat comes back every time everybody else is dead, but for whatever reason that doesn’t pertain to her. So every time the boat it comes back, she hasn’t died. Every time, sometimes one of her has, but the way that I understand it is that at any given time there might be three or four of her running around.

Todd: Yeah. She just doesn’t, she just

Craig: doesn’t know where they are or what they’re doing, because she hasn’t been through it yet. That also, you know, it made me start. Questioning, you know, and this is, you know, kind of heady. And I don’t think that the movie really merits that much thought, but this person that we’ve been following from the beginning of the movie, is she even the original Jess or is she just adoptable, ganger?

Uh, and, and that, you know, I think, I think is something that her character struggles with in the movie too. Like there are several instances where she has the opportunity to dispatch. But she’s reluctant to do it because the other, her, you know, begs and says, you know, I have a son and all of these things, and that actually gets her in trouble more than once that she doesn’t just, you know, pull that trigger right away instead of hesitating.

But yeah, I think that these movies can fall into. Traps where things become completely imploded. Yeah. And I thought that this one did a good enough job of making me think. Okay. It kind of makes sense. Yeah, there could be several of her at one point she watches herself, fight herself and kill herself.

Todd: Okay.

Craig: So we know in that moment, there’s at least three of them and who knows how many others there are skulking around, but it is, you know, that whole middle. 45 minutes or, or whatever is her just kind of coming upon these things. Like she finds a whole pile of notes that says you have to killed them all.

Or if they bored, kill them all. And she grabs a piece of paper and writes it herself and compares to the handwriting and realize that it’s her handwriting, but there are literally doesn’t, it’s like, there’s a pile of these notes. Like this, this happened over and over again. Um, at another point she like.

Falls down or no, she looks down and she sees her necklace hanging in a great, and as she’s bending over to pick it up, the necklace that she’s wearing gets caught in the grate and breaks off her neck and falls down into the great. And she looks down in there and there’s a whole pile of, um, so like this has obviously happened many, many times the most jarring.

Episode or example of that is the one that you already referred to where she, one of her, not the one that we’re following, but one of her has stabbed. Um, Sally, eh, and Sally is running away from the Jess that we know, even though she’s trying to say it wasn’t really me, it wasn’t only me. And she ends up on a deck that apparently nobody else ever goes to because there are literally dozens of dead Sally’s up there.

And I thought that that was. Really cool. Yeah, it was

Todd: cool. And you know, this movie can, I mean, I think if, if it’s not well written enough, it just becomes this exercise and what the hell is going on. And I’m just going to have to wait and see, and you kind of give up and you lose yourself just in the plot.

And maybe I’m just not a smart guy, but you know, I just, I just didn’t give myself any credit for being able to figure out. All the convolutions as the swing was going on. So I, at one point I just kind of was like, yeah, I don’t think I’m gonna, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to figure this out, you know?

Uh, but the writer does a very good job of inserting a, just the right moment, a little bit of intrigue, because as she fricking stabs, I don’t know. I think it was Sally brutally to death. And at this moment I was thinking she’s loving this. Like she’s going after these people with this. This Gusto that like, what, in this, what, in any of these timelines, it has happened to her.

What new information did she get that made her such a ruthless killer of these people? And she says, I’m sorry to do this, but I just love my son too much. And I’m like, Whoa, wait a second. Like, wait. Okay. So there’s clearly some connection between what’s going on. And her autistic son, but now you’re wondering, because her son’s not been present in any of this before, what connection could possibly her autistic son have to do with what’s going on in this ship and making her a ruthless killer.

And so once again, even though all this kind of nonsense is happening and I’m just kind of starting to turn my brain off, because I don’t feel like I have any hope of. Unraveling this plotted heavily plotted time loop. I’m suddenly intrigued again. What is it about this that that’s driving her that has to do with her son?

And so at that point, it’s like kind of snapped my brain to attention again. And I thought that was a very clever moment of probably about midway through the film.

Craig: Well, I thought it was, I thought it was clever too, because we keep seeing these alternate versions of her and all of them. Like you said are very violent and brutal and aggressive.

And it seems very out of character for her, but I thought that the movie did a good job of, and I suppose I should give credit to Melissa George too, because. As we follow her throughout the course of the movie, she becomes that the more desperate she gets, the more comfortable she becomes with doing what she feels like she has to do.

Uh, her plan is she, she realizes eventually that once all of her peers are dead, that’s when the boat reappears. And so, um, she figures out that one of her old cells was trying to tell her if you kill them, all the boat will come back. And if the boat comes back, you can get on the boat and then scape this, the sailboat, the capsize sailboat.

Right. And so that’s ultimately what she’s trying to do. I mean, there there’s one point early on when she realizes it. That that’s what’s happening and the last person and dies and she runs up and she’s, uh, sees the boats there at, you know, again, everybody. Comes aboard the liner and she’s looking at, um, the capsized sailboat, and I’m like shouting at my screen, like jump, like,

Todd: what do you

Craig: really want to have to go through?

Killing them all again, like

Todd: just

Craig: freaking joke. Um, but I guess you probably shouldn’t jump off the top deck of an ocean liner. I don’t know.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: But that, I mean, that’s, that’s kind of it, right. I

Todd: mean, yeah. We’re, we’re done talking about the main plot of the movie because the rest of it’s sort of the end,

Craig: right.

I mean, everything starts coming together. Like we, we realized that the reason. Earlier on the married couple had said, I thought you said we were supposed to go to the theater. Well, we had never heard that before, but unbeknownst to us, one of the other justices had told them that. Um, and so now our Jess tells them that to get them in place so that, you know, she can dispatch them.

You know, these little things just, uh, come together.

Todd: Finally, we’re following the jest that has the bag over her head. Right. That’s trying to shoot the Jess that’s out on the deck. That’s fighting herself. Right. And so we’re, we’re on her side of the perspective now. Uh, and the Jess fights successfully fencer off as we saw before and tosses her over the edge and she falls into the water with the bag on her head.

Craig: I do have to say though, that that was the most frustrating part of the movie, because I even wrote down in my notes, you know, what’s going on?

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: She’s already had this fight before. She’s just on the other side of it. She like don’t do.

Todd: The same thing,

Craig: the person that you were right. Don’t do the same thing, but whatever she does and for plot purposes, I guess she has to.

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, at some point we need to kind of see where this looping kind of ends up and this character falls over the side. This version of her falls over the side, into the water. And then the screen sort of fades out and comes back into an image we’ve seen before. And that’s of her laying on the beach there, ISO looking toward the waves and the waves are coming in and there’s her clothes or something, I guess, per previous costume, uh, coming at her in the waves.

Well, now we know exactly what that is and she gets up and she’s kinda dazed and she stumbles around and stumbled forward. Well, we had seen this earlier on in the film. And, uh, she goes to her house except doesn’t go inside and kind of looks at it through the window and sees her autistic son they’re painting or doing whatever at his desk, inside the bedroom, and then sees herself having this huge fight with him.

You know, she’s mad at him. He did something, he spills some stuff for whatever. She gets just overly angry at it, frustrated. Uh, and this white do going down to wipe it up. And, uh, the doorbell rings, which is her. Right. So this version of justice we’re now following is the one who rang the doorbell ran away.

He had in the, in the shed. So now we’re looping around very much to the beach, to the beginning of the movie. And you’re like, Oh, okay. This is how it’s all coming in together. But still in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, okay, now I need the answer. Like, how does. How does everything that we’ve seen before?

How is it going to possibly save her autistic son?

Craig: This is, yeah, but this is the part that I was saying I thought was so clever because it kind of pulled the rug out from under me because the whole movie she’s been so motivated by wanting to get back to her son. I mean, she is just been adamant about it and like, she gets pissy with other characters.

Um, if, if. They question her motivation, you know, it’s always like, I love my son. I’m doing this for my son. Um, so you’re thinking, Oh my God, this poor mother, all she wants to do is make sure that her poor autistic son is okay. And then not only. Does she get back and she witnesses herself. And in my mind, I thought, Oh my gosh, it’s not just happening on the boat.

I hadn’t even considered that. I thought, you know, it’s the boat thing, but it’s not just the boat thing. It’s her. When I say the rug was pulled out from under me, she’s a terrible mother. Oh, horrible.

Todd: Yeah, it’s just,

Craig: she’s awful. Uh, she says awful things to him. She, she yells at him, berates him for, you know, simple mistakes that any child, not even mistakes, the re he spilled some paint.

The reason that he, he spills paint is because he sees it, his mother. And then he turns around over his shoulder and sees. His mother also outside the window, which startles them. And he spills the paint and she yells and screams at him and says something like, you know, why can’t you be a normal kid?

You’re just like your dad. He was an asshole too. Like, she’s awesome. Oh, it’s true. Yeah. And so it really took me aback because I’d been rooting for this character. Now you realize she’s awful, but it’s kind of like her own apifany. As well, she realizes that she’s awful. So she kills herself

Todd: the end. Thank you for listening. There’s a problem with this movie really. I mean, there’s ultimately a problem with this movie is where does the cycle start? Where’s the point in which. The story she’s allowed to step outside of herself and become a second entity and start looping around. Right. And I think that’s just a thing that we just have to accept to be able to bring some closure to the concept, but her character in the film ends up getting in the car with her son and driving down the road.

Craig: Again, this was all very clever because she, she killed. Okay. When I say she kills herself, I mean that she. The jest that we’ve been following murders, her mean self. That was just me, sun and piles are in the car. And so we realized that everything that we saw in the beginning of the movie was this already in action.

This was already happening. When she was comforting, her kid, the reason she was comforting, her kid and saying bad dreams make you see bad things is because he had just witnessed. Her killing her doppelganger. And so she’s trying to comfort him for that.

Todd: That was a cool moment because I thought, Oh, you want, you had your redemption, you killed this horrible version of yourself.

Now you’ve kind of come around. You’ve seen it from the outside. And you’ve been given this chance and you escaped your loop. And, uh, you know, all this is great, but of course we know that happened at the beginning of the movie. Right. So it can’t really be the end. And she gets in the car with him and they drive.

And, uh, he distracts her. She’s distracted. I can’t remember exactly what happened there. Uh,

Craig: uh, a seagull hits the, um, Oh God, there’s been seagull imagery throughout a seagull, hits the windshield and blood splatters all over. And so her son in the backseat is freaking out and she’s trying to calm him, but in doing so, she is looking over her shoulder, back at him and she veers, uh, over the median, um, and hits a semi.

Todd: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

Craig: no. You’re right. You’re right. You’re right.

Todd: She stops. She stops. And she exits the car to go get the dead seagull. And she walks to the, to the edge of the road and tosses the seagull over the edge of the road, onto the ground by the, by the Bay and looks down and you see again, there are like a dozen or more.

dead seagulls there. So suddenly you’re like, Oh my God, like, this is part of the time. Look, this has happened before. Yeah. So she hasn’t escaped anything. Like she’s still in this, something’s going to happen. And like you said, she comes back. She starts driving down the road again, she gets distracted, veers the car off into a semi the car completely flips over.

And, uh, she. Then she’s dead, she’s dead or son’s dead. And now, now the camera pans over and there, she also is standing in the middle of the road, witnessing this, seeing herself and her son, dad. Uh, and there’s a guy who walks up behind her and says, Hey, are you okay? And she’s like, uh, you know, whatever, who are you?

And he says, I’m just a driver. Do you need a ride? And she says, yes. So this is supposed to be,

Craig: he also says, well, when you say, you know, there’s the crash and then she’s dead. And the son’s dead. It’s a little bit ambiguous, but the way that I understood it, because she had packed the doppelgangers corpse in the car.

And so I, I think that the, her that’s dead on the road is the, her that she had already killed and putting the trunk and. I think so, but it’s a little ambiguous. I was reading about it online. It’s a little bit ambiguous. Um, and yeah, so she, the driver is, is somehow has survived in a standing there and that the, the mysterious driver comes up to her.

And the thing that he says to her is no sense in trying to save the kid. There’s not anybody, there’s not anything that anybody. Could do to bring him back and you see this moment. Realization on her face and he says, can I take you somewhere? And she says, yeah, take me to the Marina. And she drives them back to the Marina, or he drives her back to the Marina and she sleeps on the way there.

And then when she gets there, he says all, keep the meter running, you’ll come back. Right. And she says, yeah, I promise. And then we see this, uh, it. The opening or the earlier scene of the movie plays out again. But again now from her perspective. Yeah. So instead of us seeing all the people on the boat, we see her approaching the boat.

And when she comes up to Greg and his acting all weird and he says, are you okay? And she says, I’m sorry. We know that now what she’s apologizing for, because she is putting this. Back into motion, which means she’s going to have to kill them all again. Um, if she wants another chance at this. Uh, which I thought was really clever.

Now, I, I was reading on line that, um, the driver is symbolically the it’s the logical ferryman who delivers lost souls to purgatory. Yes. And SIS Sufis, who was the son of that God ALS, which is the name of the boat. The reason that he was doomed to keep rolling that, uh, Boulder over the Hill over and over again was because he had lied.

To death or something like that. Um, he had, or he had broken a promise just like Jess breaks the promise with the cab driver, which then puts her in this purgatory of doing the same thing over and over and over again. And I think that the suggestion is that this is like her purgatory. She’s just doomed to continue repeating these.

Events over and over and over again. And maybe she deserves it because apparently she was a pretty terrible person.

Todd: Right. I think I love a clever. Film like this. I mean, I think if we really talked about this longer, we could start to poke holes. We could talk about time paradoxes and we could talk about like, at what point, you know, the first time all this happened, right.

There was no doppelganger in the trunk. There was no, you know, I mean, like. Uh, yes,

Craig: there was no, no, no. I mean,

Todd: very, very, very first time in life that this could have happened to her. She didn’t have a doppelganger. Right. So, yeah. I mean, you know, it’s, it’s, uh, you can, you can poke holes in this, but who, who wants to do that?

It’s just a clever plot. It’s a fun kind of movie. You get the idea. Smart. And it kind of leaves you with this, ah, kind of feeling at the end, like these kinds of movies tend to do so I don’t want to examine it too deeply for those kinds of things. I thought it was smart.

Craig: I thought it was smart too. The one thing that kind of bothers me and I’d kinda like to go back and watch the first half hour again, because the suggestion is that from our timeline, from when we started watching the movie.

The jest that we have been watching knows what’s going to happen. Right. And I don’t know, I w I want to go back and see the performance again and see if beyond her just acting kind of funny on the doc, if there’s anything else to see just that all along, she knows what’s going to happen. That’s true, because that, doesn’t it, because that doesn’t really make sense, unless she’s just a really good actor.

Pretending to be surprised. Oh, I’m having this deja VU like, Oh my gosh, are my keys, like in theory, She should know all of that. You know what I mean? Like nothing should be a surprise to her.

Todd: And there are things that actually play out differently the second or third time around. Right. I mean, like literally new things happen in the theater.

Things happen slightly differently, you know, the second or third time we see it. So it’s not really this case of where the first time you watched this, this plot, you know, go through, you’re seeing. All of the iterations, you know, combined together of what could possibly end has happened before. Yeah.

You’ve got to kind of allow for, like you said, you’ve got to kind of allow for the fact that that may be, there was a first time and a second time and a third time they can all be different and not necessarily reflected in one reality. Which is a problematic, right? I mean, it’s problematic to the whole concept, really, when you, when you think about it, you know, you’ve got to, what’s the role, like you only get to see the first, the, the previous iteration play out in front of you, you know?

Right. Yeah. But I mean, if this person is truly doomed to loop the same thing over and over again, but she has a free will. She’s not necessarily gonna make the same decisions over and over and over again. And. Right. It gives a really clever way for that. It had to happen and the movie can’t do that. You know, it just, it’s not possible.

So we’ve got to kind of accept the fact that maybe we’re just we’re viewing some, you know, an incomplete. A version of it every time, you know, or it’s just, you know, that things kind of loop twice and then that double loop just kind of happens. Infinitum ad infinitum, you know, I don’t know. It’s hard to talk about

Craig: or yeah.

I mean, that’s it like, I think if we were really talking about the. The logistics of time loops in theory, it would have to be exactly the same every time, or I don’t know. There would have to be, it always has to end up the same one way or another of it’s going to continue to loop. Um, but that’s, that’s putting too much thought into it.

It it’s it’s it’s I liked this. I was entertained. I was really, uh, Curious to see how things were going to play out. I was surprised throughout, you know, even though, even once you figure out what what’s going on, um, I thought that. Whether it was the writing or, or just the, the timing of things, um, you know, finding those piles of things.

Uh, and especially that pile of dead Sally’s right. Even though I knew what was going on, even though I knew it was a loop, even though I knew it, it happened over and over again, that visual representation of it, of Sally dragging her dying body through a pile. Of January, like, like that it was cool. And, uh, it really kept my interest.

I did, you know, it’s not a long movie. It’s only an hour and a half, I think. Um, but it’s so plot heavy, uh, that it may be felt a little bit longer, but not in a bad way for me. I never felt like it was slow. I was never bored. I didn’t think it was dragging. I was, I was constantly. Just thinking, you know, what’s going on, what’s going to happen next?

How is she going to get out of this? Um, I liked it. I would recommend this movie even to people who aren’t huge horror fans. I think that if you’re a fan of just interesting twisty storytelling, I think this has kind of a broad appeal in that.

Todd: Yeah. You know, that didn’t have to happen. I mean, you can tell a story like this and not have the pile of bodies there, you know, I mean, right.

Actually, it kind of doesn’t make a lot of sense really that there would be piles of bodies there if it’s kind of a time loop. I mean, it’s not like we’re seeing in the same scene 10, Sally’s attacking 10 Sally’s when they’re alive, that in and of itself is a cool concept, but it actually doesn’t quite.

Make a lot of logical sense. Right.

Craig: But it does in the world of the movie because there can’t be doubles. There can’t be doubles of the other people because they all have to die before they come back. Just doesn’t have to die. There can be multiple iterations of her because the return of the sailboat isn’t contingent upon her dying.

It’s only contingent upon the rest of them dying. So there would never be, there would never be more than one of any of the rest of them only. Jess. Or at least alive, their bodies would be there. Right. Which kind of, if you haven’t seen the movie, it kind of begs the question. Well, why is it, why aren’t they finding their bodies all over the place?

It’s because Jess just disposes of all of them, except for Sally’s because apparently Sally’s is up on some deck that nobody ever goes,

Todd: Oh, that’s a good point. Oh yeah. Because I’m like, well, why aren’t there a bunch of bodies in the theater? You know, why aren’t the whatever, but yeah, I guess you’re right.

She does. Take care of those, I guess. Right. So yeah. Good point. Good point. Well, I agree with you. I thought it was a nice movie. I enjoyed it. It kept me guessing. And just to the point where I was about to kind of give up, trying to make sense of it and I thought, okay, whatever, you know, it had dropped in the little bit of intrigue that made me, that had me looking toward the end.

You know, thinking, well, what could possibly be the end result of this? How could these things connect? And it was depressing. It was very depressing, you know? I mean, it doesn’t end well for her. It doesn’t

Craig: end well, it’s bleak.

Todd: It’s super bleak. And her poor autistic son who she was a total Dick towards is dead.

And there’s nothing, you know, that could be done about it. It’s just like a good horror movie should be super bleak and depressing.

Okay. All right. Well, thank you again for listening. We apologize if this is not exactly the movie that was requested, we’ll probably get to that later. We will dive into the triangle at some point later, but if you enjoyed this podcast, Please share it with a friend. If you enjoyed this movie, let us know what you thought of it.

And our interpretation of it by just Googling two guys in a chainsaw, we have a Facebook page. We have a website, two guys that read 40 net.com. We also have a YouTube channel. You can go to leave us a comment, any one of those places, as well as give us a request for any film that you particularly enjoy, that you would like us to review until next time I’m Todd.

And I’m Craig, with two guys in a chainsaw.

Today’s request is an oldie but goodie. Thanks, James, for suggesting The Blair Witch Project. We had to get to it eventually, right?

We break down this classic found-footage project, which is certainly a project of its time. How does it hold up today? Listen and fine out what we think about that.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Episode 218, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Todd: Today’s film is 1999’s The Blair Witch Project, submitted to us by James as a request. I think both Craig and I are going to have a lot to say about this movie because we were in college. Uh, when this came out, it was big, big news all over the place and it. Broke a lot of convention set some records and surprised a lot of people at the time.

For a lot of reasons we’ll probably get into, I got to see it in the theater. I think you got to see in the theater too, right? Yep. I saw it with my, uh, girlfriend at the time. Who’s now my wife. So, you know, happy memories there. But I do remember that she threw up, uh, after watching it. She literally couldn’t watch the movie after about 15 minutes watched most of the movie through sideways glances, and mostly with her eyes closed.

I think today, if we’d gone in to see it, she would have just left the theater in a Huff, but, uh, it must’ve been real love at the time. Right. Um, But, uh, yeah, she threw up and not because, you know, everything that was happening on screen was so disgusting, but because the camera work, uh, was so shaky because this is a found footage movie.

It’s not the very first found footage movie ever to be shot, but it’s probably one of the most notorious and certainly one of the first modern day ones to get huge box office success. And it therefore spawned a whole genre really. Have a found footage, filmmaking. I mean, this movie cost about, depending on who you listen to $25,000 to $75,000 to make it was shot on a 16 millimeter camera and a high eight camera, which is not even digital.

It’s like. Uh, it was just, this is the video camera shot off of a 35 page script that had no dialogue. All of the dialogue was intended to be improvised. It was in fact improvised by these three actors walking around in the woods for eight days. Uh, this was packaged up and taken to Sundance and because of a very clever marketing campaign on the part of the producers of the film who went to great lengths to try to convince people that this.

The events of this movie, the found footage in this movie actually happened. It did get quite a bit of notoriety. It was picked up very quickly by lion’s gate. It was one of their early successes and distributed and made hundreds of millions across the world. By the time it was all over. So. Very very notorious, but was a very brand new thing for a lot of us when we went out to see it.

So at the time we saw, it seemed very fresh and original and interesting who everybody was talking about it. Right, Craig?

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s why I saw it. I was excited about it. And you know, like you said, these types of movies that have such name recognition, if you’re a horror fan, which I assume you are otherwise.

Why would you be here listening to this podcast? I imagine you’ve seen this movie, so we will I’m sure. Talk about some plot points and whatnot, but really when it comes down to it, it’s a very simple story about these three, I guess, kind of like student filmmakers, um, led by a girl named Heather. Uh, all of the actors in the movie used their real names.

Uh, Heather Donahue is her name, uh, and she wants to do kind of this documentary project about this local legend, I guess, from either the town that she’s from or, or nearby in Maryland. And she recruits a couple of guys, Josh, who it seems like she’s friends with and Mike. Who it doesn’t seem, Heather doesn’t seem to know him in the beginning.

It’s like they meet in the beginning, but I guess he maybe had some connection with Josh or something. But anyway, she basically just pulls along these two guys to operate cameras for her and they go out, well, first they go to this town, uh Burkittsville, which is an actual town in Maryland. And they do some.

Interviews with the local townspeople. And that’s some interesting stuff which I want to talk about, but eventually they get into the woods, uh, and, and spooky things start happening. And that’s pretty much the whole movie, but what made the movie so interesting to me at the time? Was that I was one of the people, and I’m not ashamed to say this because they did such a good job with the marketing.

I was one of the people who was duped into believing that these events were real, that this was actual documentary footage that had been found, uh, and that these three student filmmakers were missing prior to the movie’s release. And upon the movie’s release, if you went. The IMDP page. Um, all of the principal actors were listed on IMD be as, as missing.

They even had aired a couple of weeks before the release of the movie. They had aired a documentary about the Blair witch legend on the scifi channel. And they had presented that as being factual as well. And I had seen that, um, and it looked legit as legit as any of those. You know, supernatural documentary type things look.

And so when I went to the theater to see it, I too saw it with my then boyfriend. Who’s now my, whatever you want to call him, the guy I’ve lived with for the last 20 years.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: We went and saw it together. And, um, he’s not even a big fan of horror as I’ve said many times, but, uh, we both were freaked out because we thought that what we were seeing on the screen was real. And we went and saw it in a different town because it didn’t play. I don’t, well, maybe it played in our town, but if it.

Did we went and saw it in a different town. And on the ride home, we were just talking about it the whole time, like, Oh my gosh, what could it have been? What, you know, where people messing with them? Was it really supernatural? Um, and of course, weeks later, uh, it came out that, uh, it was fiction, but the experience of seeing it, believing it to be real was a really cool experience that anybody who will see it now, We’ll never have.

And so I think that going into it, knowing that it’s a piece of fiction drastically alters your reactions

Todd: to them. I think you’re absolutely right. I it’s. Okay. It’s a product of its time and what a time it was really. Now it’s almost laughable today to think that we would consider a movie that’s released as a big feature across the country.

That’s been produced by some people made money off of somebody’s tragedy in this mysterious, crazy ass way. Right? And even with the backing of some documentary on TV and a website, they put together a website with all these interviews. We’re a little more sophisticated. Now I would say because of all of the internet, that’s come in the last 20 years and God, I can’t believe it’s been 20 years and this kind of thing happens all the time.

We really don’t know what to believe. We’ve almost become so cynical now because we see so much fakeness around us. That the stuff we even want to believe is true is sometimes needs verification, like 30 times, right. I just saw the tiger King documentary on TV. And I was just like stunned at how this could actually be true, you know,

Craig: but you’re right.

It was a different time. Like, it’s not like we were in the dark ages in 1994, the internet existed, you know, we used it for school and work and all those types of things, but,

Todd: but we didn’t have YouTube. We didn’t have Facebook

Craig: and we, we didn’t have smart phones. And like, I was a poor college student. I couldn’t afford to have internet at home.

Like I had to go to a computer lab on campus, uh, to use the internet. So it’s not like we had it at our fingertips, the way that we do today. I’m sure that, you know, somebody who really wanted to do some sleuthing even at the time could have figured it out. And I’m sure that there’s probably a part of me that was very excited about it.

And didn’t. He didn’t want to believe it all about it. Yeah. I wanted to think it was real and I’m glad I did. I mean, it was a really fun experience.

Todd: I’m a little jealous of you actually, Craig, to be honest, I was thought I was going to make fun of you for this, but the way that you put it, I actually feel a little jealous because um, I went into this fully knowing full well, it was a movie and actually.

There were people in the parking lot could have been you and Alan, who knows, but they were people in the parking lot leaving that theater not far from where your town is, they were talking about, Oh my God, the movie, like, and did you see online how that girl did this? And this guy did that. And Beck and I, and our companions were just kind of shaking our heads going.

They are so dumb that they think this is real and coming into the movie at that time with just knowing that this couldn’t possibly be real in my mind. Anyway, I found that very tedious. I was really hyped up for this very scary experience. And yes, people had even said, look, the movie scary, even though it doesn’t show you anything, you know what you don’t see, it’s just, this is scarier than what you do see.

And I bite and I buy that hook line and sinker, you know, I mean, we see a ton of movies and I, and I completely understand that. So I wasn’t even expecting to be able to see the witch on screen or to get these. Big, you know, gross reveal or whatever, kind of see violence or whatever. It’s a shock me, man.

Even with that, I just felt like it was about an hour and a half of people wandering around the woods, swearing at each other. And, and that was kind of how I left it. I was, I would say it was a little chilled by the ending because I thought it was kind of clever and unexpected and. Maybe that was about it.

Craig: You haven’t seen part of that is what made it feel even more real to me now, you already said it was, it was unscripted. You know, they were given basic plot points and they were basically dropped in the woods. The crew, the very small crew and the director were always in nearby, but out of sight and the.

The three actors had handheld walkie talkies that they could communicate with. The crew if they needed to, but basically what happened was the crew would go set up just like these crates with equipment that the people were going to need for the day and with the instructions and a map for four locations.

So they would show up in the morning, they would find this. Uh, instructions, you know, they would get new film reels. There would be instructions inside the tens for the film reels. And they would be given, you know, an idea of where they were supposed to go. And then they would just, you know, walk to those places throughout the day.

There were things in place like they had a GPS. System in case they got lost. Um, they, I don’t believe they were allowed to have their cell phones on them. And in fact, uh, though they were guaranteed that they were at no risk of being lost. They did get seriously lost a number of times. And one of those times they actually had.

Take shelter at just some random strangers house, uh, until they could call the crew and say, come get us, we got lost. And they took them back to a motel for that night and then set them back loose in the forest the next day. But all of the dialogue. Though they had, you know, they were given directives like, okay, this is your relationship.

Like initially Heather and Mike were supposed to be Antigony antagonistic towards one another. And you can see that Andy and Josh and Heather were supposed to be friendlier because they had an established relationship. Well, when they got out. They’re in the woods. I mean, these three actors, they weren’t friends in real life.

They just auditioned for these roles. So when they got out there, it was actually Heather and Josh who had a lot of tension between them, um, so much so, uh, that the filmmakers actually had to step in at one point, you know, they said they weren’t going to do that. They were just going to let things play out.

The way they played out, but it got so tense between, uh, Heather and Josh at one point that they had to step in, um, to, to bring it down a notch. But that’s part of what I think made it feel real was that it didn’t feel scripted because it wasn’t. And, and yeah, you said they walk around the woods swearing a lot.

They do. They say like 160 times through the movie, but. That’s how the people that I know

Todd: talk,

Craig: you know, not, not necessarily in mixed company, but if I were out in the woods, lost with a couple of my friends, you bet your ass, you would hear the F word probably about every other second. You wouldn’t normally find that in a scripted piece because they’d be worried about ratings and, you know, being able to air it on TV.

These guys who made the film, you know, just two guys getting started out, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez. They had no real aspirations for this. They hoped. Their, their big wish was that maybe they could get it on cable TV. Um, and it just so happened that it did so well at Cannes. It was cans, I think, where it premiered

Todd: the Sundance, I think

Craig: Sundance.

Yeah, it did so well that there was a bidding war for it and, and the rights were, uh, Sold for just over a million dollars and it got this big, a theatrical release. So I guess it’s just kind of that grassroots feel of it, the kind of, and it feels amateur the, the whole film. Well, the vast majority, I think 90, some percent of the film was filmed by the actors on location in real time.

Uh, and it, and it feels like it, um, they ended up with something, I don’t know. 20 to 30 or something. Hours of footage. Uh, the original cut of the film was two and a half hours. It ends up, I think it’s just over, if you don’t count the credits, it’s just over an hour and 15 minutes, um, that we see, but I think that it’s, it’s well edited.

Uh, but at the same time, the F the cinematography seems amateur enough that you believe that it was shot by amateurs, because it was on all of those points. It works, but your right, knowing that it’s not real, it’s kind of boring to watch people walk around the woods for. An hour and a half.

Todd: Yeah. Well, I mean the, nowadays I think that’s how people are gonna watch this movie.

So it’s really, you know, we have to talk about it in context as well as today. Right. We have to kind of measure those two things. That’s why we’re going to talk so much about the history of this movie. They had set up a website where they had used footage that they actually had shot for the movie, but decided to leave out there’s a hole.

There was supposed to be a whole section of the movie at the beginning. Or maybe at the end where they had set up the missing people with interviews stating that the kids had gone missing and fake news footage and all that. And instead, all we get at the beginning of the film is an October, 1994. Uh, three filmmakers went into the woods to film a documentary about the Blair witch and were never seen again.

And this footage was found, uh, years later, basically they decided that that stuff would be a little too cliche and too. Um, too scripted for they’re mostly unscripted film. Really good decision, by the way. Yes. They were able to use it in the marketing campaign, but the fact that the movie begins with just a title, the Blair witch project, that, and then cuts right into their project right into their footage and then ends.

And just gets pretty much silent credits for the ending is also powerful. Right? It feels gritty. It feels like something you happened upon. It feels like that tape in the ring or in what was that one Christmas movie we saw where the kids pop a tape and that they find in,

Craig: Oh yeah, no, it was a Halloween movie.

It was one of the anthologies, the one with. The scary clown, I think.

Todd: Yeah. The

Craig: clown, I dunno. I’ll remember.

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. The scary clown, but yeah, I mean it has that feel to it and you’re right. They were very successful at what they set out to do. It’s very convincing as a. Found footage, film and, and the higher Josh, because he could run a camera.

They said it, they were like over 2000 actors that audition for this. And they had a bunch of people improvise together, narrowed them down. Josh had experienced running a camera. And so that was one of the big reasons he was picked to be one of the people here. And then there were all kinds of ideas that they had, like they were going to maybe have a romantic angle between Josh and Heather, but then they kind of decided not to go with that.

And then the, the instructions that they got in the film cancers throughout the eight day shoot, where were specific to each character. So each character would read them. You know, it’s like an improv game really like today you need to question, you know, today, lose the map today. You decide that you need to walk South and you’re not going to take no for an answer for that kind of thing.

Right. And so these actors were just given little bits of things to play off of, but very talented in their ability to do that. I mean, 20 hours of footage were shot for this movie and, you know, we’re edited down eventually to get the, the 80 minutes that we have. And it’s not even a particularly tight. 80 minutes.

Right? I think the movie would actually do well if it were even shorter, but that’s not something you can put in a movie theater, you know, you can make money from. So I understand why they didn’t the part, the first part of the movie, I think, and the last bit of the movie where the were the best parts for me when they’re in the town of Burkittsville, which is where this Blair Lich legend actually supposedly comes from and they’re interviewing townspeople.

And that part also feels really genuine even though. Most of the town, the people they’re interviewing are actors. Right.

Craig: And they are, but the, but the act, the three principal actors didn’t know that that was something else that, you know, these, the filmmakers are so clever. They were so clever in their planning.

I can’t think of another. Example of where something like this has been done, where they went out of their way to establish this mythology of the Blair witch, which they totally made up. Like it was, it was inspired by some other things, but. Really it’s entirely made up by them, created by them, but they convinced the three principle actors that it was actual lore.

And so when the three actors went into the town and were interviewing these townspeople, they believed that this was actual lore of this town. And they believed that all of the people that they were talking to were genuine citizens of Burkittsville and a couple of, and a couple of them were. But most of them weren’t, you know, they were paid actors as well.

Um, but the footage for the most part comes across as really genuine and some things, and it’s not just in this early footage, but things throughout, like there were just these happy accidents, um, that turned out so well for them. One of my favorite interviews, uh, is it just, it looks so genuine, a very normal looking middle-class.

Mother, uh, outside of a store holding her kid, who’s probably two, or maybe even younger than two. And she’s talking about the lore of the Blair witch and the kid for whatever reason, got kind of upset and kept trying to put his hand over her face and like started crying. Like he didn’t want her to talk about that.

About that I ever heard was the two men were out hunting and they were camped near though. Cabinet or something that she’s supposed to horn and they disappeared off the face of the earth. Really. Okay. All right. Ingrid, I’m just telling a scary story, but it’s not true now that could only be an accident.

There’s no way that they coached that kid to do that. Um, but it played so well. That was so creepy. I thought

Todd: that was the second creepiest part of the movie. I was that kid. Yeah. That whole bit is great. And the setup is good and they even get to an older woman. Who’s. I think played up to be a very religious old ladies is sitting in a trailer, comes out and is very free to talk about an encounter that she had with the witch, where she encountered this woman in this figure in the woods.

And, and she had hair on her arms and the woman opened her. She was wearing a blouse or something and opened up her blouse and she had hair all over her body. And also clever in that none of it is really complete. Right. Nobody sits down and says, let me tell you the legend of the Blair witch of Burkittsville.

No. And just lays out the mythology for you. It’s exactly like folklore and legends and things get passed down to generation to generation. This, person’s got a bit of it that person’s got a bit of it. This person has a bit that contradicts what that person says. This person says they’re full of shit.

Half of them don’t believe it. Some of them are telling it jokingly one, one person, only one person really tells it in a serious way. And then there’s this stuff about rusty par in there and somebody being murdered and. I have to admit, even after watching the movie the first time and the second time through, I still don’t have a grill clear concept of what this actual Blair witch legend is.

I would be compelled to go to the internet to research more. Right. It’s just so real in that way, too, right? It doesn’t feel like a movie, right?

Craig: Yes. I totally agree. I mean, basically I think what the Lord boils down to is there a, was this, which, you know, for whatever reason, I don’t remember if they said that she had originally been a townsperson and she had been out cast or something.

I don’t remember, but for as long as anybody can remember, there’s been this witch that haunts the woods. But beyond that, she. This, which makes other bad things happen. So like, um, you mentioned, uh, Rustin par Rustin Parr was this guy who moved out there into the woods. He had a house out in the woods and all of a sudden, all these kids went missing.

Like seven kids went missing eventually one day they said, this is all coming from a townsperson interview. He came back into town and. I said I’m finished and nobody knew what he was talking about, but they went out to his house and they found all these dead kids. Um, and he said that he had been compelled to do it.

He couldn’t take the eyes watching him from the woods anymore or something like that when Heather and the boys are out in the woods, the first location they go to is this place called coffin rock. And she tells this story about this group of hunters, I think who, uh, went out into the woods and she’s very dramatic.

I love all of them. Her, especially early in the movie, when she’s doing the narration for this documentary, she puts on this totally affected voice. And like, yes it’s. So it’s, it’s an, Oh my God. She’s terribly annoying through the whole thing. Like, she’s lucky that those guys didn’t kill her. Like

Todd: I might

Craig: have in the torso of each man, the intestines had been torn out crudely on each man.

Sun bleached base was inscribed and decipherable writing. Cut into their flesh with an eerie precision. The men still entranced by the horror of what had happened, left the scene to find the sheriff and did not sketch the writing and did not remove the bodies from the rock upon the turn vultures were seen at the rock, but upon inspection, the bodies had been removed by persons unknown.

The search body claim to the stench of death was still thick and whomever had taken the bodies had done so in a matter of hours, That happened here at Coppin rock.

Todd: She’s the real Blair

Craig: witch. Oh my gosh. She is awful. Uh, sorry, Heather Donahue, but you were really annoying.

Todd: I mean, she intentionally played it that way though.

She said she based the character off of a director. She had worked with who thought she thought was just this pretentious asshole. So yeah, she did a good job at that. You’re right. Super annoying through the whole thing.

Craig: It comes across. But, you know, in this totally, it’s what you would expect. Somebody who’s trying to sound like a reporter or a documentarian to sound like it’s totally affected and stupid.

So there’s tons of lore for them to play with and explore. And you’re right. It’s disjointed. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but again, to me, that added to the realism of it. Cause you didn’t know what to believe. You didn’t know what app, you know, the story was. So broad, you know, you didn’t know, are we, is there really some sort of supernatural, which, and these are the things that they go through the, in the movie too, you know, they, at first, when they start hearing weird noises in the night, they think that somebody’s sitting with them, you know, like locals or somebody who doesn’t want them out there.

And then they start to wonder if it’s supernatural or whatever. Another one of my favorite things. Another one of these accidents that I think worked to their advantage so much is, uh, you know, they’re camping and they get lost. I mean, that’s the biggest concern right away is that they’re lost in the woods.

And Heather is, you know, feigning this confidence that she’s going to get them out, but tensions are growing as, um, you know, they, it becomes increasingly clear that they’re lost, but, uh, they start hearing strange things in the night. And at one point, and this was so scary to me in the theater, they’ve already heard the noises one night and the noises sound like breaking twigs and branches.

And then maybe also some kind of like animal noises or voices. It’s all very obscure, which is good. I wouldn’t, you know, you don’t want it to be too clear because you want it to be a mystery for us too, as much as it is for them. But, uh, I think the second night they’re all huddled. In the tent thinking, what are they going to do?

And something attacks the tent. Ultimately in real life. What it was was the director was just standing outside the tent, hitting it with his hands, but we’re seeing it from the inside and it looks really scary. The actors didn’t know what was going to happen there. Reactions are genuine. They decide to get at well, decide.

It all happens very quickly. They, they jump out of the tent and go running. Um, and so the footage is super shaky cause they’re running and it’s dark. And so you can just see in the beam of the light, the light on the camera. And at one point you hear Heather. Say you don’t see her because we can only see her back, but she looks over to the left and she says, bye, bye.

Gosh, who was filming from behind was supposed to pan left to where she was looking. And we were supposed to see the Blair witch. And it was somebody I don’t know. Part, one of the crew members dressed in like all white with pantyhose, uh, over his head. And we were just supposed to get a fleeting glance, but Josh forgot to pan and they didn’t reshoot it.

So we never get a glimpse. Of the, which, which I think is so much better than if we had,

Todd: yeah,

Craig: I don’t, I mean, you know, maybe, maybe that would have been creepy imagery, but I just, in my mind, the way that it was described, what it was supposed to be, it, it sounds hokey. I mean, maybe they could have pulled it off and it would have looked weird and creepy.

Um, But I think that I prefer that a, a mistake was made and we didn’t actually ever see the, which

Todd: I think you’re probably right about that. We’d probably be saying about how it would have been better if they had not had the witch at all, rather than see this white, this weird white figure running by like, what the heck was that?

But on the same sense. It was a bit of a disappointment for me in the movie. And maybe it’s because again, I went in there not really believing all this, so my imagination, maybe wasn’t working over time, but seriously, like a, as I was watching it, I really wanted so badly to see. Something. And really when we do get to see what we do get to see are, are not figures and not people, but weird things, right?

Yeah. They come across a piles of, of rocks along their path. One of them, at one point there was a pile of seven rocks. And I think that was supposed to reference maybe seven of the kids who were killed. At one time in one of the stories,

Craig: seven piles of rocks. Yeah.

Todd: When they wake up from, I think the first night that they’re kind of molester, they’re hearing things or their tent is something, uh, when they wake up, they step outside and there are three piles of rocks out there.

And it’s obviously a pile of rock for each of them and that’s creepy. Yeah. And they think it’s creepy too. But then they press on and it’s, you know, 20 more minutes of them arguing about who lost the map. What, where are we, how are we going to get out of here fighting, not fighting it, yada, yada yada, then they camp again.

And there’s some mysterious noises. And then. They wake up and they go around some more and then they come across one of the more iconic things from this movie. And that is this little part in the woods, kind of a mini clearing, where there are all of these stick figures. They’re hanging from trees and they’re stuck to trees and they’re tied to trees and they’re on the ground.

And this is pretty well freaking them out because. Well, of course, a pile of rocks isn’t natural, but these clearly tied together, stick, figure somebody or something did this, and it’s creepy as hell. Right. So that freaks them out and it would freak me out too, if I were out there in the woods. But as a theater goer, wasn’t really freaking me out too much.

And, uh, you know, so then they go and they argue some more and they’re lost. Some more. And this time around, I was really trying hard to get in the heads of these kids. Like, okay, I’m lost in the woods with them. Wouldn’t I be scared too. Wouldn’t I be scared too, because that seems to be the scariest part of the movie is they’re lost a, night’s going to come at some point and mysterious things are happening at night and these ominous signs are.

Along their path. They’re coming across one point, they think they’ve been walking South the whole way, but they come across the same Creek with the same log that they previously crossed and that’s frustrating. And they had these moments of breakdown, which are also really good. Right. Yeah. And, and convincing.

Craig: Well, because, because they are genuine, you know, they had some idea of what was going to happen, but there were also tons of surprises along the way. Plus you also have to just consider, you know, all of this tension, the infighting it’s real because they really are sleeping in the woods for eight days. Um, and you know, they’re.

They really are walking through the woods all day, every day. Um, they were given, you know, limited food, you know, they were given some snacks and things, not like they were being starved, but they, they were exhausted and hungry. And so, you know, they’re given these directions, these maps to follow and they walked through the forest all day.

And they end up back exactly where they started in the morning. And so, you know, Heather at first doesn’t want to admit it. And when she finally realizes that that Mike or whoever it is, that’s telling her it’s the same tree across the Creek. When she finally realizes it’s true. She falls to the ground and weeps.

And I think that a lot of that. You know, she’s an actress, but I think a lot of it is genuine. Like Jesus, we just walked through the woods all day, carrying these huge backpacks, all this camera equipment, just to end up where we started. Um, so some of that frustration, uh, is real and you can see it in. The tension when they fight too.

I just thought it was really kind of hilarious that, you know, in the beginning, Heather and Mike are kind of, um, sparring with one another. Uh, and Josh is playing the peacekeeper and that’s the way it was supposed to be. But as the movie goes on, you just see Josh getting more and more angry at Heather.

And eventually Mike has to step in and be the peacekeeper.

Todd: That’s right.

Craig: And it just works for me. I mean, I I’m going on and on about all these great things, I, none of that in the Gates, what you say, the fact that if you know, it’s not real, it’s just not as compelling, but I also think that it is more compelling if you know about the production, which is why I think we’re focusing so much on that, because I think it’s more interesting than just talking about people walking around in the woods.

Todd: Yeah. I mean, that’s kind of sad, right? It’s like something that we’re kind of, you get a lot more fun out of watching and analyzing it nowadays than you get out of actually experiencing it. Really, maybe the way it was intended to be experienced in the beginning. You know, it’s more of just like a cultural Relic that we can examine.

Like it’s sitting in a museum somewhere, you know, but that’s not necessarily bad. There are a lot of movies like that too. Um, that we just can’t enjoy so much today, but we can still appreciate them.

Craig: And you said cultural Relic in many ways. It is. And I think in that way, that hurts it too, if you are a first time viewer, because like even those, those stick figures there’s so.

Iconic at this point, you know, they’ve popped up in other movies. They’ve popped up in television shows. They’ve you know, that, that imagery, you, you see it video games, you see it all over the place, these creepy stick figures. I don’t recall ever seeing them before this movement. And so. You know, when I was seeing it for the first time, they’re very simple.

They’re just these very rustic made out of twigs and things from the forest tied together to kind of be representative of like a human figure. And they’re hanging from the trees. And I had never seen anything like that before. And it was very ominous. Young people, especially, or anybody going in and watching it now they’ve seen it, you know, like, Oh yeah, I’ve seen that before.

That’s scary. Well, I hadn’t seen it before and it was scary.

Todd: So younguns. Yeah. But they had that like Wicker man, quote, you know, quality to them, like, um, evocative, maybe of some old religion or some people, you know, witchcrafty thing in the forest. So like you said, even though at the time. Uh, it was the first time we’d seen them.

They were super creepy and now we’ve seen that kind of thing all over the place. So it doesn’t really feel it doesn’t have that impact. I think another scene that I really enjoyed and I hadn’t even remembered from before. Was, uh, when Josh is super frustrated with Heather and they’re definitely lost and Heather’s frustrated too.

I think she’s had her breakdown. She’s just leaning up against a tree and he has her camera and he is taunting her.

Craig: Well, you can do better than that. Okay. Here’s your motivation? You’re lost. You’re angry in the woods. And no one here is here to help you. There’s a fucking witch and she keeps leaving shit outside your door.

There’s no one here to help you. She left little trinkets. You fucking took one of them. She ran after us. There’s no one here to help. We walked for 15 hours today. We ended up in the same place. There’s no one here to help you. That’s your motivation. That’s your motivation.

Todd: Tears are welling up in her eyes and.

That’s gotta be a little genuine too. There’s a bit of Metta going on there as well. I think cause he, as an actor is taunting her as an actor in the same sense that she’s, you know, but it makes sense in the context of the movie as well. That seems really powerful and I felt really sorry for her at that moment, but I could also understand Josh his frustration, especially because she’s such a tool.

Yeah. Nothing’s more annoying. Well, there are a lot of annoying things, but there are a few things are more annoying than being in a situation with somebody else. Who’s pretending that everything’s all right. And pretending that they’re in control and trying so hard at it that they’re not even good at it.

And you know, they’re not in control and you just hate that, you know, it’s like, who are you to. To, to be so arrogant also, we’re all responsible for each other here. We’re all part of the situation. Well, how can you claim all the time that you’re in control is like, I can’t trust you anymore. And you’re supposed to be the one who’s leading this project.

It’s a really interesting dynamic between the three of them, even though it is rather

Craig: simple. Yeah. I don’t remember if it was right before that part or right after, but Josh is still behind the camera. Heather. Doesn’t like being on camera for whatever reason. But Josh is behind the camera and things have calmed down.

Uh, and he says, I think I figured out why you liked the camera so much. And she’s like, Oh yeah, how come? And he says, because it’s, it’s not reality. It’s filtered reality. When you’re behind the camera, you can kind of, um, convince yourself that it’s not real. Um, and that’s kinda. Netta. Yeah. Yeah. I, I liked that moment.

Todd: It’s really clever. It makes you wonder. And that’s another fun thing about this movie makes you, well, obviously they all came up with this dialogue themselves, right. It’s just really pretty smart. I mean, they deserve a ton of credit for, for this movie. They should get writing credits for this film.

Really? Yeah. I think they all did pretty well by the time it was over, they had to sign. Releases, um, stating that they would help keep up the fiction for a while that they were dead and missing. And even though, you know, they had missing, missing posters up at, at one of the film festivals, they had played like a, they were handing out flyers, like, let us know if you have information, any information about these actors or actresses who have disappeared, but it turned out there was a television executive who really had disappeared a few days before that.

And when they found that out, They’re kind of like, Oh, this is kind of a bad taste. So then they, they took those down and he was found later. Apparently. So, um, that was that’s nice. Um, but yeah, so to get back to the movie, uh, they want to run in the woods some more and uh, eventually one night they go to sleep and wake up and Josh is gone.

I think you said it earlier, that the dynamic between Heather and Josh in real life was getting so bad that the directors made the decision that they were going to pull Josh’s character out of there entirely.

Craig: It was supposed to be Mike, Mike was supposed to and, and S and Heather and Mike didn’t know that Josh was gonna disappear, that the film makers told him.

Wait until they go to sleep and then sneak out. Um, and so that’s what he did. And I read that the actor who played well, Josh Leonard, he snuck out and he found the filmmakers and they were like, okay, you’re dead now. And he was, he was actually relieved because there was a concert that he wanted to go to.

Todd: He said he liked took a shower, got stone, went to Danny’s and did a concert good for him. Yeah.

Craig: But yes. Right. And they wake up in the morning. They don’t know where he is. Um, but right outside the tent. And I don’t remember if this is. You know, and there had already been something established where like a previous morning, um, the, their camp had been messed with, and it was only Josh’s stuff that had been messed with.

And like, there was some kind of weird slime on his backpack or something. So they had kind of projected that maybe Josh was in trouble, but after he disappears, uh, right outside the tent, she finds this bundle of sticks. And I hadn’t put this together. Um, and, and I don’t know if this was the end. But there, there is, uh, an old story called.

The devil and Tom Walker, I think there’s two different. The devil there’s the devil and Tom Walker and the devil and Daniel Webster. I don’t remember which one it is, but in one of them, this guy goes into the woods and he makes a deal with the devil. Um, and he comes back and his horrible wife, uh, scolds him for not making a better deal.

So she goes out into the woods to make a deal with the devil and she never comes back. And later he goes out. The woods and he finds her apron all tied up. And when he opens it up, he finds like her heart and liver in there. Um, and in this, uh, she finds this bundle of sticks. And at first she just throws it away.

But later when she can get away and Mike isn’t around, she goes and she opens it up. And first of all, it’s bound in strips of. Josh’s shirt. And when she opens it up, there’s a packet made from the fabric of his shirt. And it’s, she can tell that it’s bloody from the outside. And when she opens it up, there are teeth in there.

Uh, and she freaks out. And I remember in the theater. Just being disgusted and just absolutely having no idea what was going on. Um, but that imagery, um, was pretty scary and gross and just the mere idea of it when they have no idea what’s going on.

Todd: Well, it’s the first time some harms come to a character.

And then at that point it’s verifiable harm, right? Somebody tore his shirt into strips. Bud took the time to put this bundle together with his teeth and blood and whatever else in it. And so, uh, I mean, at that point, you know, you just have to be over the moon, scared for your life.

Craig: Right. And they’ve heard his agonizing screams in the night for at least one night.

And then that kind of. So, you know, they hear his screams all through the night. She finds the bundle. They’re still lost. There’s uh, another nighttime where we get the infamous scene that was in all the trailers. That’s probably the most recognizable scene from the movie of Heather doing this nighttime confessional after Mike has gone to sleep.

And it’s just an intense closeup of her face, which again was another message. Steak. Yeah, she was supposed to be fully in frame, but she accidentally zoomed in too much. Um, so you can only kind of see her from her upper lip up. She goes on this whole monologue where she apologizes to her parents and to Josh’s parents.

I am so, so sorry for everything that has happened because in spite of what makes us now, it is my fault. Because it was my project that I insisted. I insisted on everything. It’s really effective because she’s ugly crying, you know, like

Todd: a lot of

Craig: actresses vanity wouldn’t allow this, um, you know, the, the tears are falling.

Snot is rolling out of her nose. Um, and it feels authentic.

Todd: It’s also gross to watch. I remember. Is it one of the scary movies, the parody film? Probably just stuff like snot, continually gushing out of the character’s notes during the seat. It’s hilarious. Oh God man. Yeah, but it’s effective and it’s a turning point for her character to really this person who’s acted.

So in control this whole time. Uh, suddenly fessing up to responsibility for it all. Um, and that she doesn’t know what’s going to happen, but she knows it’s going to be terrible. But once again, we don’t have a lot of time for character development in this. Anyway, she’s maybe the, the strongest personality.

I think, I don’t know for, for me like Mike and Josh, obviously Josh gets angry and Mike ends up being the calm one and then Josh disappears and Mike’s kind of still seems to be the calm or one, right? Yeah. But. As a sense of like who Mike really is or what his, you know, dreams or aspirations or motivations, or, you know, what he’d be like to have a beer with.

You really don’t get a feeling for any of that. You know, I just know, I just know, I wouldn’t want to have a beer with, with Heather. I’d want to stay the hell away from her.

Craig: She is, she’s really awful. Um, just, just obnoxious, but yeah. It’s not like I felt a strong connection to any of them, but I legitimately felt bad for them.

Like, Oh, this, this is really awful. Like, you know, even

Todd: just,

Craig: yeah, right. Putting yourself in their shoes, be even just beyond the supernatural stuff, just being lost in the woods. I mean, that is scary enough. You know, I live in a rural area. I’ve spent lots of time in the woods, uh, and, and the woods that they’re in look like the woods that I’m accustomed to, and it’s all fun and games until you get lost because, you know, they keep saying one of my favorite parts in the movie is.

They keep talking about getting lost. And Heather says we can’t get lost. This is America. We have destroyed all of our natural resources. We are bound to find civilization if we just keep walking. And in most places that is true, but there are certainly still places in the United States where you could very easily become lost and it would be.

Potentially deadly. You know, if you can’t find resources, you can’t find shelter. People can’t find you. People do die in America every year from getting lost and from exposure. And so even just that I sympathized with them. And then when all this weird shit starts happening, I felt bad for them. Uh, yeah.

Even if even Heather who I didn’t like, like you said, who, I wouldn’t want to be friends with. Um, I felt bad for her too. And I, you know, I felt when she’s giving that confessional and she’s saying, you know, Mike says it’s not my fault, but I know it is, this was my project. I told them I knew what I was doing.

I even felt bad for her then, because I can see myself in that position. I’m probably more like her than I would like to admit. In that I don’t like to admit when I’m wrong. And it’s really difficult for me to have to do that. And so when she has to admit to the camera and to herself, I screwed this up and it’s really my fault.

I felt bad for her.

Todd: And there’s also kind of a net naivete here to the situation that we can all relate to. You know, we’ve all had our moments where we’ve just had these fun projects, right? It’s this innocent, fun, little project. You’re getting a group of people together. You’re going to go do something.

And for that to end in tragedy is. Is a tragedy, you know, it’s this wasn’t like we went off to war. This wasn’t supposed to be some serious situation. We were just going to spend a few nights in the woods and I have a map and a GPS and you know, we’re just investigating this legend. It’s probably bullshit.

Cause we don’t believe in it. Blah, blah, blah. Right. And, uh, and you know, I’ve done projects kind of like that, where you just get together and you do things, and then something happens. Somebody falls off a cliff and now it’s not fun anymore. And that’s, that’s what this is. And so just the situation itself, being lost in the woods, being on this fun project, that ditch was just supposed to be nothing and turns out to be, you know, terrifying.

Those are things we can relate to. Right. And we can, in that way, put ourselves in some of these characters shoes, even if we can’t always relate to these characters or really know them, Or necessarily care what happens to them. We care what happens to them because we can easily see ourselves in their

Craig: shoes.

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

Todd: I totally get that.

Craig: And you know, it all leads up to this ending, which again is also a very iconic and has been spoofed and referenced in many other things. But, um, Uh, the night after Heather finds the bundle with the teeth in it, which were real teeth, by the way, in case you’re curious, they got it from a dentist.

They, again, in the night they hear Josh screaming. So they run out looking for him and they come across this house, which we are led to believe is the house that they were talking about in the beginning of the movie, this Rustin pars house, where these child murders took place and they go in and. You know, I don’t know how much of it was done in mixing, but they do a good job in the final film of making it very disorienting.

Like, it sounds like the voice is coming from upstairs, or, and then it sounds like it’s coming from downstairs. And I, you know, I know that in production, all of the screams were prerecorded and they had, uh, speakers, you know, uh, strategically placed in the woods and indifferent. Places, so they could change the output.

Um, and it would be disorienting, but you know, the, the directions for Mike were to get in the house and run around really fast and run up and downstairs and try to keep Heather as far behind you as you can. Um, and, and he does, and you hear her. Screaming for him. And it sounds so real. Like she really sounds terrified.

Yeah. And according to her, she was eventually, she catches up to him and they, they go upstairs and they don’t really find anything up there, but then he thinks he hears something downstairs. So he runs off without her. And again, she’s yelling after him to wait and he goes down into the basement and we see, I think maybe, actually it was upstairs.

We had seen. Runes and like hand prints on the walls, all very creepy stuff. Uh, and then he gets down to the basement and we’re just seeing from his camera’s POV and it just, we hear like a thud and the camera drops to the floor. And then the perspective cuts to Heather’s camera and she’s running around, still screaming for him.

And she runs downstairs and the light of her camera pans across the room. And you see Mike standing in a corner with his face to the wall, which was part of the lore. This Rustin Parr would take the kids down into the cellar in pairs and he would make one of them face the wall while he killed the other one.

And then he would kill. The other one. So Mike is down there with his face to the wall. Again, we CA I guess kind of hear some sort of scuffle Heather’s camera falls to the floor. And that’s it. Again, these actors, you know, Mike was instructed to run downstairs. He did, when he got down there, two crew members, all.

Completely in black, grabbed him and directed him to stop talking and they put his camera down on the floor and they told him to stand against the wall. And then Heather ran in. She had no idea what she was going to see. She saw him and very calmly. They grabbed her and motioned for her to stop screaming.

They laid her camera down. So what seems very chaotic and fast and brutal was actually really well choreographed. And I just think that the ending. It remains very chilling. Um, even if you know, it’s fake, I still think it’s a good ending.

Todd: It is, is pretty shocking. Cause it’s not what you expect. Well, first of all, you don’t know the movie’s gonna end here.

Right? Second of all, it’s all very chaotic scene. So this chaotic scenes clearly building to something, it may be, it’s going to be our bigger showpiece, something grand. And when she runs down into the basement and you see him with his face against the wall, right? The it’s just a dissonant image. It doesn’t jive with, right.

It’s totally shocking to your brain. And it’s creepy in that way. Like what the hell is going on? And you hardly have time to react to that when her camera falls. Right. That’s the end. Uh, and so yeah, of course your brain’s going, what the hell is going on? And, Oh my God, is this it? Like, this is all we get.

And in any other movie you’d be super disappointed. Like, Oh, they screwed up the ending. Like they, they chickened out. They didn’t know what to do. And in this movie, well, it’s found footage, what are we going to do? This is all the footage we got. Right. Right. So, so they have an excuse for it. And that, and that was something that did haunt me a little bit as the, as I replayed the film in my mind, like what was that?

I didn’t even remember. The rust and Parr law firm earlier in the movie. So I was super confused. In fact, I read that the filmmakers actually went back and added the rust and par stuff after the fact. So even they hadn’t completely planned that part out, but decided upon showing it to audiences that they needed some little explanation to tie that in.

And then when the distributor picked it up, Well, they had recommended a different ending. And so they dutifully went out and shot like four or five different endings, some of which, you know, had them like crucified on one of those stick things and some things which had Gore and all kinds of stuff in it.

And by the time they were all done, they said, look, I think the original ending’s probably better. And, uh, thankfully the, the distributors agreed and let them go through with it. And it turned out to be again, one of the most iconic endings in horror. Really? We still talk about it today. I think. Well, we are talking about today, right?

What I mean, like people referenced this all the time and it shows up on lists is like scariest moments in horror cinema, or top 50 scariest endings in a horror movie. You know, this is, this is definitely up there. So it’s effective. It really is.

Craig: And the movie was huge. Like there was so much hype around this movie.

I remember all the hype. Around it. That’s why I was so excited. I must have seen it opening weekend or really close to that, because again, I still was under the impression that it was real and it opened opposite the haunting, which was, I think it was the haunting I made. It was another, it was a huge budget horror movie.

Um, and it blew it out of the water. Like you said, there are varying reports, but, um, I read that they, the actual production of the movie, these guys didn’t have any money. Um, so the actual production was only 20 to $25,000. And like, they were so strapped for cash that they bought. I think the 35 millimeter camera or whatever it was that they used, they bought it at like a circuit city.

And after they filmed, they took it back. They took it back and got their money back for it. That’s how it. Strapped, they were for cash. So the production was like 20 to 25,000. Somebody put in 500 to 750,000 for post. It got sold for distribution for one point $1 million. They did $25 million in marketing.

Uh, and it made worldwide over $250 million. So, I mean, it was just insane. How well this little movie by these nobody. Directors starring these no name actors who nobody had ever heard of just was a worldwide phenomenon and sparked a franchise. A couple of years later, Blair witch, two book of shadows came out.

Have you seen that?

Todd: No, I haven’t. I’ve always been curious.

Craig: It’s not very good. I mean, as a standalone movie, it’s fine, but they, you know, they abandoned the found footage thing. It’s it’s clearly like a Hollywood picture standalone. It’s okay. It’s not great. Um, there were, uh, there was a series of young adult books.

There were video games. Um, and then I think in 2018 there was a surprise sequel, which was just Blair witch. Did you see that in the theater? Alan and I went back to the theater,

Todd: a romantic,

Craig: and I liked that turned out. I liked the movie, but it just, without the hype and without, you know, it’s just not the same, you know, knowing that it’s and, and, uh, the third one is really kind of a direct sequel to the first.

They basically ignore the second one altogether. And the third one does what people. Wind and moaned about the first one not doing, which was not showing anything, not showing the, which you do see the witch in a Blair, which you do see a lot of these supernatural phenomenon. They play a lot with like, um, time jumps and, and weird stuff.

And it’s clever and it’s a well-made movie, but, you know, It just doesn’t stand up to the original, not necessarily in quality, but, uh, in, in hype and inexperienced. But nonetheless, I mean, it’s, it’s a huge phenomenon and I bet money will see more from it moving forward.

Todd: I mean, it has to carry the legacy of just a powerhouse original film that was so original at the time and did something that, you know, quite frankly, probably can’t be repeated.

Right, right now we watch a lot of found footage, movies. We know they’re found footage, but we still find reason to enjoy them. People thought this was going to be kind of a one trick pony in that way. That like, okay. You know, now a whole bunch of people are gonna rush out with their video cameras and make found footage, films, thinking they can do them all cheap.

Uh, but you know, it’s not really gonna work again. Well, it has, it has worked, uh, in big budget films as well as low budget films. Uh, we’ve seen people do really innovative stuff with this where they haven’t had to pretend that it’s real, right. We as the viewer just, uh, it’s just another way another format in their frame of telling a story and that’s.

That’s kind of neat and Blair, which in a way, opened that up for us a little bit, at least brought it mainstream. And I was super excited when it came out. It was so popular as a budding filmmaker who also at around the same time, ran out and shot a movie with a digital camera that I returned to Walmart when I was done with it.

I wasn’t above that either. But yeah, so, I mean, I was excited to see. Because at the time there was this huge debate among my friends and I like, yeah, these digital cameras and things are getting better and better all the time, but. You probably really have to shoot on film for audiences to accept it. And now of course, it’s not true.

20 years later, we’ll watch anything. Yeah. But back then to see a movie that was shot with a video camera up on the big screen, making a hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide was extremely inspiring. And I think it did inspire a whole generation of filmmakers that otherwise would have thought that they had to go to huge lengths and.

Enormous amounts of resources to put their vision up on the screen in front of people. And so, you know, in that way it did inspire me even if at the end of the day, I wasn’t as taken by the movies. I really wanted to be at the time. And still today, like I think we’re both kind of agreeing it doesn’t quite stand up to a.

A fresh viewing by somebody who’s never seen it before.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: Thank you, James, for giving us the opportunity to talk about the Blair witch project. But if you have a request, you can find us online, just search for two guys and a chainsaw. You’ll find our Facebook page. You can find our website, two guys.red, 40 net.com.

You can also find our YouTube channel where you can now listen to us while you. It’s still image of our faces and it doesn’t sound entertaining to me. I think it’s more of a turnoff than anything, but apparently there are a dozen people who like to do that. So if you’re one of those, uh, go down there and make a 13 and subscribe to our channel, please so that we can do a little bit more stuff with that in the future until next time I’m Todd

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Todd: With two guys and a chainsaw.

This week we tackle another request – this time from loyal listener, Chase, who saddled us with an intense and tricky “art house” horror film from legendary Polish director, Andrzej Żuławski, starring a young Sam Neill.

This is the story of divorce amidst a failing relationship, told with style and high-intensity and a very obtuse plotline. We often didn’t know what to make of the goings-on, but we couldn’t deny that this film unsettled us both, and that’s a good thing. Have a listen.

Possession (1981)

Episode 217, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: We are continuing to plow through our request list. Today’s request comes from Chase. Thank you so much, Chase, for submitting this on Facebook and you requested us to do 1981’s Possession, a very interesting choice of film. Probably one that most of our listeners had not heard of before.

Uh, this was, um, written and directed by, and I’ll butcher this name, uh, but it’s a Polish name on Andre, Andre , uh, Zula Husky, probably, uh, a good serious cinema file. This is probably a name they would know. Uh, he’s a. Pretty famous director of art house films that died about four years ago or so. Uh, but he has a number of films that he is released that, um, have one reason or another been lauded on the circuit, uh, particularly in Europe.

Uh, they’ve done quite well in Europe, not so big in the U S. But he’s more of an art house film director. So I think a lot of his movies more appeal to the European crowd, uh, than the U S crowd, which is more used to the straightforward Hollywood movies. I feel like when we do these kinds of films, if you’re an American listening to us, you probably are.

You probably have never heard of these movies, maybe if you’re overseas and you’ve listened to us, you have a wider breadth of film knowledge. Maybe you have more of a global sense of, of movies and maybe your tolerance for movies that defy the typical Hollywood formula is a little bit higher. And, uh, this movie would definitely fall into this vein.

I thought it was funny that this was requested and I believe that when he requested this. Chase had said, I know it’s off the beaten path of the type of horror y’all review, but, um, his birthday was last March, so we gotta give him something. Right. So this is what we did possession. It just so turns out that this is a movie that I’ve actually been interested in watching for quite a while when Craig and I.

When I went off to China several years ago, I made a list of movies and I downloaded a bunch of movies that Craig and I should watch, and this happened to be on it. So it actually has been on our list from my perspective, but I’m not sure that Craig has ever heard of this movie before. Am I wrong?

Craig: Uh, I don’t think I had, I mean, he, you know, the title possession, that’s pretty generic, so I don’t know if I had ever heard of it or not, but I definitely was unfamiliar with, uh, you know, what it was all about.

So it was completely new to me. I knew nothing about it going in

Todd: at all. Gotcha.

Craig: Except for the Sam Neil is in it. And I like him. So. I was excited about that.

Todd: Yeah. This is a pretty young Sam Neil in this movie. It’s pretty fun to watch that Sam Neil, you guys probably remember from Jurassic park and about a thousand other movies.

If you’re into horror In the Mouth of Madness was a big one. I believe that’s a John Carpenter movie that he starred in and also Event Horizon, which got to do someday because that movie is freaky as hell. And Sam Neil was in that. He is an Irish born actor who is more or less. Raised in New Zealand, and this is one of his earliest films that might be the fifth or sixth film that he ever did.

And it kind of shows, I don’t know. I feel like his acting in this movie is. Not so great. It’s a little over the top. It’s almost a little laughable and I think they actually got a lot of critical, well, this movie divided critics considerably when it came out, it was a huge hit in France. So the director is Polish.

It was filmed in West Germany. It was released worldwide. It did extremely well in France, but it was filmed in English because the producer of the film. I believe that, uh, she could sell it pretty well worldwide. If it was shot in English, unfortunately it was so good in France, but the French version was completely dubs.

I watched a commentary from the director and he mentioned that it was a bit of a shame that they didn’t shoot it in French just because it did so well there, the French people had to deal with a dubbed version that didn’t have quite the same impact. In any case, this movie is going to be interesting to talk about because there’s a ton to unpack here, but you know that Craig and I are separated by distance right now.

So we don’t sit in the same room and we watch movies. So Craig sent me a text about an hour before I watched this film that said what the. Fuck.

Craig: Yeah. Gosh, I just had no idea what I was getting into. And it’s interesting that you say that his acting is maybe a little bit amateurish and really over the top. I don’t know, the movie is so bizarre that I felt like all of that was intentional. It could be as kind of crazy and frenetic and over the top as he plays it, his performance.

Pales in comparison to the oddity of his co-stars performance.

Todd: Uh,

Craig: Isabelle, uh, Johnny is a French actress who the director of this movie had seen, I think in a play. I only watched the first part of the commentary. It was late and I couldn’t get all the way through it, but I, I, he had seen her, I think, in a play when she.

Was really young, like 15 when this movie, when, when it landed in his lap or when he wrote it or whatever, he had her specifically in mind. And he went to her to ask her to play this role. And at first she was hesitant because she felt like she was too young. She’s supposed to be, um, a mother. Uh, and I guess he reminded her that she was in fact a mother.

So she wasn’t too young to play a mother. So she did it and she is just. Batshit crazy throughout this whole movie. And, and there are so many odd levels that she plays. I mean, you have to appreciate it at the very least, and it was appreciated. She won best actress at Cannes for. This and another role that she played.

I just, honestly, I don’t know what to make of this movie. It’s it’s weird. I feel like maybe it went over my head. I, I don’t know. It’s insane. I don’t even know how to talk about it.

Todd: There are a lot of levels to this movie, right? There’s it’s just layered with symbolism. And like you said, it doesn’t follow a cohesive.

It does actually follow a bit of a plot and a bit of a narrative, but it, it seems to jump in time. Maybe at least once. And like you said, it’s quite over the top. I completely agree with you by the way about Sam Neal’s performance, I will always, and people listen to this podcast, I think have heard me say this before.

I’ll always give an actor a bit of a pass on their performance because they’re really in the hands of their director. Right? The director has the vision. They tells them, they tell them how to perform in a professional’s just going to say, you know, the director says, I want you over the top. You’re going to be like this, this whatever.

And a professional actor is just going to trust that the director has a vision in mind and they’re going to do their best to match the vision of the director. So I’m not saying that Sam Neil is a poor actor in this movie. But like you say, it may be very intentional that the director intended his performance to be like a heightened reality, right?

Just like over the top as is so much of this film, all of it

Craig: all physically you’re right. It’s really, really weird. And to the point that now I just want to say upfront that I’m really glad. That chase, uh, recommended this. Cause I don’t think that I would have seen it otherwise, but it really kind of disturbed me.

Like I was thinking about it all the rest of the day and into the night. And, uh, I don’t know, like it’s still, it’s really, really unsettling and I didn’t know what was going on. Like, like you said, there is a narrative and the director writer, director. Was inspired to write this movie when going through his own messy divorce and everything that I’ve read about.

It says that that’s really what it’s about. It’s about the dynamics of a relationship and turmoil and falling apart. And you definitely can see that, but it’s so. Heightened reality. It’s it’s, it’s surreal. It’s it’s dreamlike. It just seems like you’re like four steps outside of. Reality.

Todd: Yeah. These

Craig: things couldn’t pot, nobody acts this way.

Alright. So when this guy

Todd: and yet Craig, just a moment as a guy who’s been married for 20 years, I have to say there were points of this movie that. We’re uncomfortably close to home that you and I know you’ve been, uh, you know, together with your partner for quite a while, too, but there were moments in this movie where I was like, yeah, I’m sure a lot of people younger than I would see this particular scene or whatever, as a sort of crazy heightened, like super lucrative, however, I’m.

Pretty sure. My wife and I have had arguments like this before. Maybe admitting too much, but no, you haven’t,

Craig: you’re a liar. That’s not true. He’s fine. His wife is a lovely woman and she, he is no, you’re just straight up lying because, okay, so

Todd: this, this guy,

Craig: I just don’t believe it. So I don’t even really understand what’s going on.

So the opening scene is when he’s like. Uh, Sam Neil’s name is Mark main character. He’s driving through Berlin. Um, and of course, you know, this is before the wall came down, the wall is still up. We see that there, the apartment that he and his wife live in is actually right near the wall. So it’s a constant visual, which I think is also, you know, symbolic of a nation divided all this stuff, but he, and he gets home and we find out immediately.

His wife basically greets him in the courtyard of their apartment.

Todd: You cannot just say you don’t know that’s what you said on the phone. When will, you know? I don’t know. Do you want me to spend the night somewhere else in a hotel or something? Do you want us to meet later on? We can talk more calm. I do.

Do you need more time? What, what do you need? What is, I’ve noticed that you were coming back today.

Craig: So there’s clearly something going on. He has been gone for a period of time doing, I don’t know what,

Todd: that’s the big mystery,

Craig: there’s this establishing scene where he’s sitting in, like, it’s set up kind of like a conference room, like in the corner of this huge, like warehouse building and he’s sitting in front of a panel of men.

And it seems like he’s reporting something to them. Like some findings, like he was an investigator or something or a spy. Yeah. I don’t it’s it’s all, it’s all very ambiguous. You don’t know, but right away. I knew that I was in for a ride, because the way that this scene was shot was so odd, like it was in this huge cavernous room and the camera just sweeps around and around and around like, I don’t even know who they do that tracks it on wheels.

Like,

Todd: yeah. But it seems like in this scene, because the shot was so wide, they were doing some kind of steady cam thing and it showed a bit because it wasn’t the smoothest of, um, you know, sweeps around. But yeah, there’s a lot in this of that cinematography in this movie. Right. There’s a lot of the sweeping around people and stuff in this particular scene.

Probably not on tracks, but yeah, in most other scenes, definitely on tracks. Yeah.

Craig: And it’s disorienting because you, it messes with your perception. And for me, I kept thinking, how am I not seeing, because it does three 60 so much. How am I not seeing crew? How am I not seeing equipment? How am I not seeing reflections?

There’s one scene in a restaurant where they’re sitting. The two main characters are sitting in front of mirrors at a 90 degree angle. And you never see the reflection of the camera or the camera, man. You barely even see the reflection of the act themselves. It was. Yeah, I know it was so weird. Okay. Like I couldn’t figure it out.

Todd: That scene was fantastic. That scene was great. Like this couple, like you said, they, they meet up with each other. They have this awkward conversation on the corner. She storms away. He grabs all of his bags and walks after her. Her name is. Yeah, Anna. Right. And they have a son and they go in there and then, like you said, um, they’re, they’re laying in bed.

There’s this scene of the two of them sitting next to each other, laying next to each other. And she says, were you faithful to me? And. His response is sort of like, Hmm, not really.

Craig: And pretty much, no, it’s like pretty much like, something like that where you unfaithful not really, like, what does that even mean?

Todd: Okay. But anyhow, of course. And he asks the same thing of her and she’s basically like, no, you know? And so they have this very antagonistic type of relationship. Like, like they, when they left, they were in the middle of a fight. And when they come back, it’s like, they’re picking it back up again,

Craig: kind of.

But at the same time, there’s still intimacy between them. Like, you know, they’re very comfortable together nude and laying in bed. And like, I couldn’t tell if it was implied that they had made love or they hadn’t, like, I thought that they hadn’t, because at some point he says something like, I’m not, I don’t even want to touch you or something.

I don’t know. Like it’s just there laying there very intimately knew together in bed, touching, you know, side by side. But then there’s this coldness between them too. And then he wakes up in the middle of the night and she’s gone. She calls him, I think the next day and says the truth of the matter is I have taken a lover and I want to leave you.

And he is not willing to accept that. And he says, I meet me somewhere. And she says that she will. And so they meet at this restaurant and that’s where that weird scene happened.

Todd: But not before he goes through all of her stuff. Right. He’s looking through her stuff. He looks through her bookshelf. He sees all these weird, like psychological type books on there that almost look like they’re labeled.

Yeah. Like they came from a library or something and, uh, he finds ’em. A postcard that, you know, when he flips it around, we see, uh, it’s addressed to her. And it’s very kind of loving thing from somebody named Heinrich later on, his son mentioned something about getting this toy boat from an uncle Heinrich.

So he pretty quickly zeroes in on who it, you know, the name of this guy. And like you said, they meet at this restaurant and this restaurant scene is so good. It’s like a weird booth situation where it’s at a corner. So he’s sitting at a table, uh, in kind of a booth thing and there’s a mirror behind him and then there’s a corner and she comes in instead of sitting opposite him, like normal people would do.

She sits down next to him, but that’s around the corner.

Craig: So she’s right, like catty

Todd: corner, catty corner. And she’s sitting at another table and there’s a mirror behind her. And I have to tell you, I don’t know if you had the same feeling, but the whole time I’m watching this scene, which as you said, sweeps from her to him, I cannot help, but be distracted by the fact that you cannot see their reflections.

In the mirror.

Craig: I know. I couldn’t figure it out. Yes, totally. I couldn’t figure it out. And I thought, because it was so odd, I thought, Oh my gosh, there’s something weird here. Like, I didn’t think they were vampires, but I’m like, is this supposed to be like, you know, there’s soulless or they’re not really there.

And I still have no idea. Now at one point he kind of leans forward and his. Reflection does come into the frame of the mirror just a little bit

Todd: briefly, almost like a mistake.

Craig: Yeah. It’s so strange. And basically they fight and she says that, you know, she’s going to stay with this other guy Heinrich and he says fine, but I don’t want anything to do with you.

And I don’t want anything to do with Bob. Which I thought was a Dick move, but yeah.

Todd: Okay. And

Craig: so then I don’t even remember how it escalates. It starts out relatively calm. Like he’s pretty agitated, but she’s pretty calm. And then it escalates and he goes, Crazy. Yeah.

Todd: He, he, there’s a passage of time. He’s in whatever apartment or whatever he staying in and you see that he’s grown a beard and he’s like sweaty.

He looks like a guy going through drug withdrawal.

Craig: Yeah. But even before that, But still in the restaurant, he freaks

Todd: out

Craig: like starts throwing chairs

Todd: and

Craig: he’s chasing her through the restaurant. Like he’s trying to get her like to hurt her. And he’s throwing chairs and like the whole kitchen staff has to come out and tackle him.

It’s tackled.

Todd: Four chefs wearing these tall French, you know, chef hats. It’s, it’s actually kind of comical actually by the time he gets to her. But you’re just so taken by the violence of this situation. And like you said, it’s like at any moment when these two characters interact, there’s the potential.

And I’d say about 80% of the time it happens. Where it just unreasonably escalates into extreme violence, right. Between them. They’re throwing stuff around. They’re like running around the room and they’re never looking at each other when they talk to each other. It’s just a marriage completely broken.

And two people

Craig: completely

Todd: fail to communicate with each other and everything is just at a level 11. Yeah. It’s very unsettling.

Craig: It that’s it. Exactly. And that’s why, like you said, like he goes on a binge, I guess, a drinking binge or a drug vendor or something and yeah. It’s like you see him. Like he’s in a seedy motel.

It’s like, he’s going through withdrawals. And then after some time passes, he goes back home. And when he gets home, he finds his son there alone. I don’t know how long the son is supposed to have been there, but like the, the apartment’s a mess. The kid is disheveled and like dirty and covered in food.

Todd: I think the implication is three weeks.

Cause he says something to some maid who pops in the room and she, he says, how long have I been this way? And she says about three weeks. And when he goes back to his son, it’s like, it can’t be that long though. Yeah, I’m sorry, I’ll take that back.

Craig: He’s a little kid. Yeah. I mean, he’s, he’s maybe like six,

Todd: I don’t know.

Craig: And so then she comes back and again, there are these confrontations and this is the first like 45 minutes of the movie is really mostly just about their marital strife. But what bothered me so much about it is exactly what you said. It’s very incredibly violent and I’m just not. Accustomed to that.

Like, it’s, it’s such a bizarre chemistry because as much animosity and violence as there is, he’s constantly. Begging her to come back

Todd: begging

Craig: he is. And at some point he says, you know, I know you’ve got this other guy. You can keep seeing him. I don’t care. Tell him you love him. I don’t care. And it goes back and forth.

Sometimes he says, you have to leave him. Sometimes he says, I don’t want, I don’t care what you do so long as you come home to me sometimes, but they get in these viciously violent fights. And there’s one in particular where he really, I think she hits him first, I think. But then he hits her. Multiple times, and it’s just so troubling to watch.

And meanwhile, this whole time she goes, she vacillates between like fragile and seeming, like, she doesn’t really know what she wants to almost just like completely. Out of it, like completely spaced out. Like her eyes are out of focus and she’s not looking at him and it’s like, she’s staring off into the distance.

Like she’s insane. Part of the reason that it was so surreal to me, one of the things was that nobody seemed to acknowledge the fact that she was. Fucking crazy. Why isn’t anybody taking a second to acknowledge that she is crazy? I didn’t get it. It was so weird.

Todd: It is weird. It is weird. And she’s got this other guy named Heinrich, who is this German guy?

And he’s weird too. You know, I told you, he finds the postcard. Mark finds this postcard. That’s this address to high-mix. So he has a name and they also have apparently sort of a mutual friend Marge. And she, I mean, the, the characters of this film are really these two margin Heinrich. There really are no other characters in the movie.

There are a few people come and go, but that’s about it. So he calls Marge and he’s looking for information about her. Uh, I’m sorry about Heinrich. And at one point, Heinrich just calls him and there is with me and she’ll stay with me. So he gets Heinrich’s address and he goes to Heinrich’s house. And Heinrich is this like foofy kind of guru new AIG guy who right away, you can tell he’s a total douche bag.

And he gets really handsy with him.

Craig: Oh my God.

Todd: I’m

Craig: sorry. You’re just going to have to, you’re going to have to like, Be this like crazy, because I thought they were going to,

Todd: like,

Craig: it was so weird and it’s not just them. There are several scenes between men who barely know each other at all, and they are right up in each other’s faces, touching each other, caressing each other.

One of the, one of the guys, when this happens, the guy actually does turn out to be gay. And I was like, Oh, well, Good, I guess, because I was so confused, I really thought Heinrich was trying to seduce Mark in that scene and it’s filmed like a dance. It’s another one of those. Scenes where the camera is spinning around and around and around them.

And not only is this, the camera’s spinning around them, but they are spinning around each other in the opposite direction. So it looks like a choreographed dance

Todd: that they’re like a waltz.

Craig: Yes. It’s bizarre. And then Heinrich ends up instead of having sex with

Todd: him,

Craig: he ends up beating the shit out of him.

Todd: Yeah. They, they both take turns at each other and they get, I listened to a, an audio commentary by the director about this movie and the guy who there was like a facilitator and the facilitator was like, so tell me a little bit about Heinrich. And the director was like, Oh, I hate this guy. He’s a total douche bag.

He’s like the essence of the douchebag, you know, that I basically put in this movie totally out to lunch completely just cares about banging this girl, but then it turns out that these two guys are nothing compared to who this girl’s really sleeping with. There’s actually a third. Person, if you will, which is sort of where her heart lies.

And this is where the movie gets really bizarre. And you’ve got to have a lot of patients for this kind of film, like what we’re talking about here, the heightened reality, all of the craziness, all the weirdness, all of the very blurred lines that are happening everywhere. I think that, you know, this is very European.

This is like the movie again. Is like kind of a poem, the things that these people are doing and the actions that are taking places and the visuals on the screen are really more reflective of the emotional States of the characters than supposed to be representative of a reality. I mean, normally people don’t really act like this in real life.

What we’re seeing on the screen is just sort of a reflection of the emotional States of everybody, which has to have this effect of jarring us into this state of mind ourselves. Right? So it’s just a sort of, um, hi, uh, octane cinema to try to pull us into this story and get us. Into the minds of these characters, getting us feeling what they’re feeling, getting us as frustrated as they are.

And I think it really, really works at this level. You know, I mean, there are moments in this movie where the characters. Is looking at the camera and addressing the camera, you know, I mean, and that’s uncomfortable and it’s unsettling, but it does the job, you know, it gets us, uh, like I felt like Mark at a lot of these points.

I felt a frustration at her. I felt anxious and. You, like you said, it’s just an uncomfortable movie to watch, right?

Craig: Yeah. I like the things that we’ve talked about so far, though, they are kind of crazy are really just kind of

Todd: warming us, you

Craig: know, human drama. Yeah. Human drama kind of stuff. Meanwhile, there’s some other weird shit going on.

Like she, at one point goes and stands underneath a crucifix for an excrutiatingly long time. And just looks up at it and like grunts

Todd: for awhile.

Craig: Okay. That was weird. And then, yeah. Yeah, that’s really just like, I don’t, I have no idea what was going on there. One of the times that they fight she’s like ferociously, like chopping and grinding me.

And then she takes the electric meat, Carver and cuts her own neck with it,

Todd: by the way. Fantastic scene. I mean, this scene was great. This, I mean, this is like the best scene in the movie as far as I’m concerned, because it was very symbolic and poetic. And like you said, over the top and uncomfortable, but it also is in a psychological way kind of reflective of how you can get in these intense arguments with somebody else that just sort of feel like the end of the world.

Like they’re arguing with each other. They’re not looking at each other pretty much the most of the time she’s in the kitchen with this automatic. A cutter thing, you know, these like, um, what do they call those electric knives or whatever

Craig: electric, Carver

Todd: cutting up meat, and then putting it in the meat grinder.

It’s there’s just constant noise of this meat grinder. Plus you’re watching or push meat through a meat grinder. I mean, this symbolism here. You could almost fault it for just being a little too heavy as well. Right? It’s a little pretentious. They’re fighting, they’re arguing and she’s here grinding meat through this thing.

I hate this way. What have I done that you hate me so much?

Just the fact that that noise is always there and they’re arguing and the prettiest and things are getting thrown. And you’re wondering is her hand going to end up in that fricking thing? She tr she cuts herself on the neck to which he, like you said earlier, immediately switches and becomes the doting husband where he runs and gets her, her thing and wraps it around her Sims herself leaves her.

Goes to the kitchen and takes that same Carver and starts carving his own risks. He, he does like a three cuts down his arm and almost barely has a reaction. And she walks in and says it doesn’t no. It’s just this numbness that this couple has reached this like emotional level where they’re just at this point, we’re nothing they’re so emotionally numb because they’re so they’re arguing so much that just nothing phases them anymore.

And it’s this visual representation of that in the film. I thought it was brilliant. It’s extremely art house. You know, it’s definitely not Hollywood style, but there was a part of me again, I know you don’t believe it, but as a guy who’s been married for 20 years and has his fair share of pretty intense fights, you know, with his wife over those years in a weird way, emotionally, I could kind of relate to this.

I don’t know. I’m saying too much.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: I mean, let’s put it all in context.

Craig: You’re going to let a little time pass and then you’re going to realize you’re going to want to do some editing.

It’s all right. It’s all right. Audience our spouses don’t listen to this podcast. Well, no,

Todd: I wouldn’t say for sure. We’ve reached the depths of despair that this couple has reached, but what I can say is I can understand it.

Craig: I kind of get what you’re saying when you, when you love somebody that much and you get into disagreements, it can get very passionate and it’s.

It’s intense because of the feelings that you have for each other. Right, right. That’s what you’re saying.

Todd: That’s exactly what I’m saying. Thank you. I

Craig: get that. So there’s that weird thing. And that’s weird. And then, so she then just very calmly leaves. Previously, he had hired a private investigator to follow her because neither he nor Heinrich know where she is.

She told Mark that she was living with Heinrich, but she’s not. And Heinrich doesn’t know where she is either. So Mark has hired this PI. This PI sources out, I guess a detective and this detective follows her from Mark’s apartment through the city where she’s acting totally weird. Um, like she goes to the market and then she gets on a train that only has one other passenger on it, like a hobo.

And she sits down right next to him and is completely too oblivious to him to the point where he like, takes a banana out of it. Her bag and eats it right next to her. And I’m like, what is happening?

Todd: What is this

Craig: mean? Like

Todd: don’t understand.

Craig: Okay. So then they, they get off the train. Any follows her into like this old building.

And I guess it’s kind of run down and eventually, like, he kind of puts you foots around, but eventually he knocks on the door and claims to be like a building inspector or something. He says like there’s glass on the ground below. And so they have to find where the windows are broken and she clearly doesn’t want them to come in.

Like she’s trying to keep him out, but he insists. And he’s looking all around. Finally, he gets to the back room, which is the bathroom and he opens the door and there is some sort of bloody oozy demon. Creature and you can’t, it’s dark and you can’t really see it. It just kind of looks like in hell raiser when the guy, you know, is, is coming back, but he’s all bloody and gross.

Kind of like that, except not as human super weird. And so then he’s just standing there like mesmerized by it. And she comes up behind him, hits him in the back of the head with a wine bottle and then stabs him in the neck with the broken shards of

Todd: it.

Craig: So now she’s killing people. She’s got this secret apartment with some kind of weird thing, and I have no idea what it is.

I’m going fast because I’ve been trying to get to this. The next surreal thing to me was Mark takes Bob to school and Bob’s teacher is identical. To Anna, except for she has lighter color hair and these weirdly bright green eyes. And I say identical, because they’re played by the same actress. He notices Mark notices right away.

Todd: What is this a joke? What are you talking about? I’m

Craig: in your work?

Todd: Have you ever seen my wife naturally every day?

Craig: It, they never address it again. The fact that these two women are doppelgangers, that’s just, it

Todd: like. Yeah,

Craig: it’s never discussed again. And it’s so weird.

Todd: It brings a unique balance to the movie that pays off later. Right. I was thinking of eyes wide shut in this regard. Did you ever see eyes wide shut

Craig: a hundred years ago when I came out?

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. The wife and the husband both sort of go through their own separate experiences, but they’re kind of parallel went away. And I was thinking, I was thinking about that as this happened, like a he’s she has her got doppelganger and later on, we find out, you know, he has his doppelganger as well,

Craig: but that’s not until the last five minutes of the

Todd: movie.

Right. Which is also weird

Craig: and it’s not pre and it’s not projected. So no. Well, when it happened, I wasn’t terribly surprised, but I didn’t see it coming necessarily either. So the fact that they just disregard the fact that she is identical to, you know, and Bob apparently doesn’t notice nobody else notices it.

It’s it’s weird.

Todd: It’s true. It’s true.

Craig: Yeah. Well,

Todd: I don’t know. I don’t know, but at this point, like, I don’t know, we’re about halfway through the movie and finally we’ve gotten to this point, like, but at this point you might wonder why, why was this recommended to us as a horror film? And it’s not until you see that bizarre ass creature, all bloodied and weird in her bathroom and then her, you know, stabbed that guy.

In the neck to death with the bottle that you realize, maybe we’re treading into horror territory, and it’s certainly heads more into horror territory as we go on, but we’d be remissed to point out that the guy responsible for the effects of this movie is Carlo rom Baldy, who is an icon in horror effects.

He had his start in Italy. He’s Italian obviously had to start an Italian cinema, a couple of the movies we’ve already reviewed a Bay of blood, a deep red, or one of our Gentiles movies. He did the effects for, but then he moved over to Hollywood and he started working for Spielberg. So he did the affects for close encounters of the third kind, which he had actually just been in the middle of, if not, just off the top of working when he worked, when he did this movie.

And then later on would do ITI. I mean, he was responsible

Craig: for ETS.

Todd: I know. Affects design and, and, you know, went on to do more after that, again, listening to the commentary of the director of this movie, he talked about actually how frustrating it, it wa it was, uh, to work with, uh, Carlo Ron Baldy, because he comes to Italy and he said he had this suitcase full of condoms, pink, condoms, these like, all right, we’re going to put together some creature with these pink condoms.

And, uh, you know, the director looked at it. It was like, okay, well, but you know, we’re shooting tomorrow. And he’s like, what, what do you mean we’re shooting tomorrow? Like, Like he had just come from Hollywood where, you know, you spend like a week or two putting together things and getting the lighting and stuff.

Right. Um, but he’s like, no, no, no, no. So he had to craft a pretty quickly through the night in the hotel room with a few of his assistants, the creature effects for this movie. And I think the creature effects at the end of the day turned out to be kind of a happy accident in the sense that, and the director said this too, in the sense that early on some of these earlier representations of the creature are quite.

It’s just kind of a mess, right? You can’t really see what it is. It’s got these technical things coming off of it, and it’s not quite so sophisticated by the very end of the film. We see a more sophisticated version of this creature, but Holy crap, this woman’s got this weird ass tentacled creature in her apartment that she says.

Craig: And we get to see it later, which is really weird, but she says it too, like because, okay. So the original PI that Mark hired comes to him and is like the detective that I hired is missing. And again, they have a really oddly intimate conversation where they are centimeters from each other’s faces like holding hands and caressing one another’s hands.

And the PI says, Mark gives. The, the detective had called him before he went in and he gave him, he said, I found her, I have the address. So Mark has the address. So he gives the PID the address and the PI is like, Oh, okay, well that, guy’s my lover. Like. Okay, great. Um, so, so the pie goes over there and he walks into the bedroom and this creature thing is like riving in the bed.

Todd: He’s very tired. He made love to me

Craig: and I almost threw

Todd: up. So

Craig: it’s like, because not only is the creature gross, it’s like laying in a pool of what looks like. Blood and pus and come. It’s just

Todd: casting. It’s like, did I just stumble into a Japanese movie? All of a sudden Japanese tentacle porn thing,

Craig: Tokyo Gore police, right.

Todd: It’s true. Oh, it’s effective.

Craig: So weird. And then, so she kills him too.

Todd: Uh,

Craig: and, and then like Helen visits, Mark’s apartment. And just out of nowhere, they just decided to get naked and lay in bed together. And then Bob wakes up in the middle of the night screaming. And so he gets up to go take care of Bob.

And like, while he’s gone, still totally naked, but she has gotten herself. Dressed. And she’s like, I’m sorry, I got to go. And then there’s just like kind of weird tension between them. What is,

Todd: what is,

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening

Todd: for myself. I took it as a, sort of a confused mental state.

He’s got, his wife has kind of. Is out to lunch and he’s lost, but he really wants her, but she’s distant and she’s not there. And he, and then this is a woman that looks like his wife. He brings a Rover. It’s not even clear that they had sex because at one point they say, she says, you don’t have to make love to me.

And he says, I know. And they just

Craig: he’s like, I’m not trying,

Todd: I’m not trying to laugh. Yeah. And they just laugh. And so that’s unclear, but she goes, and then, and then shortly thereafter, he drops the son off at the school and he just kind of like. Purposefully ignores her. He turns his head and walks away too, which she seems a little dismayed as she stares after him.

But it’s like, it’s like, he feels like he made a mistake. And again, that’s why like sort of eyes wide shut was coming back to me. I feel like it’s this emotional landscape that this couple has to go, you know, traverse while they’re going through these problems is other people and there’s this difficulty and there’s this, how do I get my release?

But how do I stay true, true and faithful to my partner. And it’s just kind of a. Big mess, like the movie. Right. And we’re in this mode to watching it. I thought also some political things were kind of sneaking in here too. Right.

Craig: I don’t know.

Todd: Well, they’re like what every now and then Mark is looking out the window and he’s got a watch hanging from the hand on the window for reasons.

I’m not quite sure, but he’s looking out the window and it’s like, The wall there that separates East and West Germany is, is there. It’s like outside their apartment. It’s also outside her apartment. And there are constantly people almost looking with, with glasses right up into their window, like laughing, like they’re under this constant surveillance and they there’s a lot of discussion in this movie about evil, you know, and about how evil, like hype talks about evil.

And she talks about evil. Helen talks about evil when God. And God, I love Helen’s line when she’s in there. So like you said, Mark had invited her in and she cleans up. This is before they lay in bed, but, um, she helps give ’em, uh, give, uh, Bob a bath and puts him to bed. And then she goes into the kitchen, starts cleaning things up and she says, Oh, you really need more help around here.

And then. As she’s cleaning the knife off in this scene, that it’s shot. That looks really sinister. She says I come from a place where even easier to pinpoint, because

Craig: he had

Todd: said to the

Craig: fish. I know, and I was like, where is that place?

Todd: Like? Right. Well,

Craig: who or what are you?

Todd: Yeah, I mean, I literally interpreted it as East Germany, uh, literally in the movie, but again, I think there’s a thematic element to this as well.

Right. Cause then she turns to him and she says, I’m not sure I like your place either. There’s just, it’s a mess. Right. It’s just layer upon layer upon layer of meaning and double entendre that is going to take way more than an hour, you know, if we really wanted to dive in and unpack all these things.

Right.

Craig: So well, and I don’t know that I could, that’s the thing, like, I feel like I could watch this movie several more times and I still would not be sure what was going on or what was intended and like, things don’t escape me. Like it didn’t, I mean, some things do, but it didn’t just escape me that. You know that scene of him laying in bed with Helen was virtually identical to the scene with him laying in bed with Anna from the beginning of the movie, you know, laying side by side, nude in bed, being shot from directly above.

I mean, aside from the fact that her hair and eyes are a different color, it could be two clips from the same scene. Um, so I, I presume there’s something you know, about duality. Like maybe she. Represents the part of Anna that he loved and that he misses and you know, the other Anna, the crazy wild-eyed shrieking freak Anna is, you know, The other side,

Todd: the darker side.

Yeah.

Craig: Well, I don’t know.

Todd: There’s also this fact that, um, this Anna, Anna is a teacher. She’s a pretty simple, seems, very happy teacher of young children. And then Mark comes back and he finds a film reel that was left to him. We find out by Heinrich and it’s a sort of super eight or 16 millimeter movie that Heinrich shot of Anna.

And this is of Anna in a ballet class. And so we find out Anna herself is also a teacher, but she’s a ballet teacher. And in this ballet class, she’s rather intense I to put it mildly as I’ve actually heard ballet can be. And then I was thinking of Suspiria, but anyway, you know, she’s in this ballet class and she’s basically pushing this girl and it’s a constant monologue coming out of her mouth.

Well, she’s like, you got to get your knees up. You’ve got to do whatever and whatever, in the meantime, as she’s doing this, this girl is in pain and she’s more and more uncomfortable. And finally. She just runs out of the class. And then Anna delivers this monologue to the camera, which by this point is us, we’ve switched to the point of view of us, not why not Mark watching the footage, but just like us watching the footage.

And she delivers this extreme long monologue. That’s clearly a stream of consciousness, you know, from her part. And at this point I felt like the film was getting a little pretentious because this stream of consciousness coming from her is all about like, I feel like I’m stuck between two worlds. Well, it’s, it’s like this two sisters of faith and chance my faith could exclude chance, but my chance can kill it.

Can explain faith. My faith didn’t allow me to wait for tests and chance. Didn’t give me enough faith. And then I read that private life is a stage only. I played in many parts of that are smaller than me and. Yet. I still play them. I suffer, I believe I am. But at the same time, I know there’s the third possibility, you know, like cancer or madness cancer or madness control, reality, possibility.

I’m talking about Pierce’s reality and it was useful information, but it was delivered in this way that, you know, come on.

Craig: Well, yeah. Okay. So through that video, but then it was also really odd because. First Mark is watching the video and then with no transition, he’s sitting there talking to her, like, it’s like a continuation of what she was talking about in the video, but now they’re together.

Whereas we had just seen him alone. It unsettled me, but then, okay, so this is the craziest one. Part of the movie, in my opinion, while she’s talking about this, we see her and, and it turns out, I guess this is a flashback, but in the moment I had no idea if this was happening now, I didn’t, I didn’t know what was going on.

She’s walking in a subway station and she acts crazy all the time. So I wasn’t all that. Weirded out that she was just kind of laughing maniacally in the subway station, but it just progresses over the course of several minutes to where she’s flailing around. She has groceries, she flings the groceries up against the wall and it was like eggs and milk.

So it’s all wet. And she’s like, Rolling around it in the ground. And then all of a sudden, she, she, she kneels down on the ground and grabs her crotch and blood and pus and Gore start coming out of every orifice of her body. And. It’s incredibly gross. And she refers to it as a miscarriage. And she said, what I miscarried that day was a sister faith.

And so all that’s left is sister chance, but then she also talks about, so now, because she miscarried the faith, she has to like. Nurture it and care for it. So like, did she birth that creature? Is that think

Todd: so? Yeah. It’s, it’s confusing in the middle of the film. And, uh, again, I listened to the commentary by the director and he said this was another one of these happy accidents because of.

Um, you know, I talked earlier about the special, special effects guy. He had all these like weird condoms and stuff, and he was supposed to actually have a creature ready for this scene, but there was none. So they basically ended up shooting at the way it was without explicitly her birthing some creature.

And so, and then he put it in the movie kind of out of order, right. Uh, in this sort of weird flashback. So he ended up liking the fact that it was a little ambiguous, but. Initially in the movie was a little more continuous in that she would birth the creature and then we would see this creature in the bathtub.

And then, you know, again, by the end of the movie, we would see the result. So, uh, but, but as we watched a movie now, it’s, it’s considerably ambiguous what she’s talking about. But yeah, I think, I think the point is that she had some kind of, she calls it a miscarriage, but she ended up birthing some creature, which then yeah, manifests itself and becomes.

Um, spoiler alert becomes Sam, uh, becomes the doppelganger of, um, Sam nails,

Craig: the green Knight doppelganger, right? Yeah. Um, I wanted to say this scene was so gross and so troubling to watch. Yeah. And thinking about, I say this, and I don’t want to sound pretentious because from an actor’s perspective, like, okay.

Yeah, I do like community theater. It’s not like I have this, I have this great perspective, you know, but from an actor’s perspective, I can’t begin to imagine where you would have to go to put in that kind of performance. Like, yeah, it was insane. And. And I’ve read interviews with her when she said, you know, this is the kind of movie that you can only make when you’re young, because it just requires too much.

Like you just have to give too much. And she said, I couldn’t. Do it again, I could never do something like that again. And I kind of understand that because I remember being a young actor and, you know, really feeling passionate about really giving it your all and really getting into the character. And now that I’m old, I just don’t even know if I could get to those places, uh, anymore.

Um, But it was really intense. And as bizarre as her performance is she’s 100% committed to it. And I completely understand why she got the accolades that she did for her performance.

Todd: Well, she got best, um, best actress for this movie. Yeah. There’s a Caesar award, which is basically the. French Academy awards, and she’s still holds the record for the most number of, uh, she, she got, she got best actress five times once for this movie.

Wow. Yeah. So she’s pretty insanely good. She’s still, by the way, making movies and she still looks stunning. She’s known as a bit of a prima Donna and that, and actually the director complained that she was a bit, even during the filming of this movie, but like you said, she said this film took a lot out of it.

The director took her to some very dark places. And, uh, there’s a bit of a rumor in the director even sort of confirmed at saying that she even maybe tried to commit suicide after doing this film, just because she was such a wreck. It might have also been an attention getting thing. It’s hard to say. I don’t want to diminish that, but, uh, yeah, the point is this movie, clearly you can see it on screen, took her to some dark places, took a lot out of her.

Definitely. She’s at the top of her craft at this point.

Craig: Oh gosh. Okay. So yeah, I mean, I’m trying to hurry along cause we’re, we’re almost to the hour Mark and there’s still stuff that happens. I don’t know how much of it is all that important Heinrich comes to her apartment. She shoots him. But or no stabs them, right?

Yes. He finds the dead bodies and stuff. And so she stabbed him in the abdomen or in the chest, but he is okay. Ish and runs away. And he calls Mark and says, meet me at this bar on the corner or whatever. And so Mark then goes to her apartment first, also finds the dead bodies, uh, turns on the gas and the apartment then goes to meet Heinrich and kills Heinrich in the bathroom.

Now, at this point,

Todd: Yeah. I was not expecting that.

Craig: Well, I wasn’t necessarily expecting it, but from the point that Mark found the dead bodies, I felt like that was a turning point for him. Like he lost it too. And from that point forward, he was crazy. And his only objective was protecting her, um, because he still loves her and he still wants to be with her.

Despite the fact that she’s with this. Creature that he hasn’t seen yet. So he kills Heinrich. He blows up the apartment, her apartment. He tells her to go home. She does, when he comes back, um, he finds that she has cut Wendy’s throat for reasons, unexplained,

Todd: Maggie throne, Marge,

Craig: Margie, or

Todd: whatever.

Craig: And so he helps cover that up.

He tells. Her to go somewhere and he’ll come meet her. And then I feel like he disposes of the body or something. And then when he goes to meet her, he walks into wherever she is. I’m totally confused at this point. I don’t really know where she is. I think she’s at March’s apartment, but I’m not sure, but he walks, he walks in and you can hear.

Obvious sex noises. Yeah. And like, he’s clearly troubled by that, but it’s like he can’t not look. And so he walks into the room where she is getting railed by this disgusting technical squid monster. And it’s pretty freaking graphic. Like it is a sex scene.

Todd: Yeah, no question. This guy did he T like a couple years later, by the way,

Craig: in this thing, this thing is like thrusting into her with this heat, like it’s huge tentacle body. And he just stands there and watches, and like, they like make eye contact and she just keeps saying almost. Almost. And I’m like, Ooh, almost a what.

And so then, okay, so he leaves and he goes to Heinrich’s house because Heinrich’s mom calls him. So

Todd: I feel like the seed could have been cut entirely. I don’t know why.

Craig: Well, they have a whole conversation, like she’s like, Oh yes. Uh, you know, I know you loved her, but Heinrich loved your too. And it’s like this very casual conversation at the end of which she kills herself and he just sits there and holds her hand while she dies.

And then he comes back to where she is. And at first I thought it was the cops that were there, but it’s not it’s whoever he was working for in the beginning and they’re looking for him. And so he hires a well, he doesn’t hire, he forces at gunpoint, a taxi driver to cause a distraction by crashing a car so that I think so that Anna can get away because somebody drives away in his car.

Yeah. And then. There’s a shootout and he shoots a guy, but he also gets shot. And then he takes off on Heinrich’s motorcycle and goes to this place. I don’t know what this place is. Do you

Todd: know? He’s just driving to like the Bay or something. It’s just, I don’t know what, yeah.

Craig: He goes in this building and it’s just this huge staircase, like a, not like, well, not like a tight spiral staircase, but like, you know, the stairs go around and around all the way up and he starts going up there and then she meets him there.

Like he’s dying. Cause he’s been shot and he’s bloody he’s on, he’s like on the landing and then she comes up and he yells at her to go away or to run or something. But when she finally gets up there, she has with her, him his doppelganger.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: That’s bizarre. And like acting really weird. And has these bright green eyes like Helen had.

She says, like he’s done or he it’s finished or something like that

Todd: kind of thing. Yeah.

Craig: And then, so Mark raises his gun to shoot the doppelganger, but before he can, he and Anna are machine gunned down by his old associates,

Todd: one of which, who. Is the guy he was tailing apparently. Right. Because early in the, in the movie.

Um, when he had that weird meeting and

Craig: pink socks.

Todd: Yeah. And it turns out the guy had the pink socks that bit. I didn’t get either. I was, I thought, what was this supposed to be some twist? But by that point I was so far gone. It seems so inconsequential compared to everything else that had been happening up to that point.

Craig: And then the, uh, the doppelganger escapes through the roof. And the next thing that we see is Bob in Helen’s apartment apparently. And she’s like taking care of him, like giving him breakfast or something. And then there’s a knock on the door. And Bob says, don’t answer it. She’s like, well, I have to. And so she starts walking and Bob just starts like screaming.

Don’t answer a tone, answer it, don’t answer it. And he runs and you can see it’s a glass door. Uh, you can see the doppelganger silhouette on the other side, as she’s approaching the door, Bob runs upstairs in his pajamas, jumps into an already drawn bath and. Kills themselves

Todd: somehow. I’m not quite sure.

Craig: I mean, one way or another, he just gets in there in his clothes and then just floats face up.

And that’s it like for a while? Uh, that’s the last we see of him. And then we see Anna standing at the door getting ready to open the door. And then all of a sudden, all of these sirens start going off and explosions and the lights are flashing and she turns around and the camera just zooms in on her face.

Space as the lights are flashing and then it cuts the black and that’s the end. And I don’t know, like I’m thinking like, This it’s the end of the world. Like it’s an apocalypse, the like the, these two entities, whatever they are, you know, these doppelgangers of our main characters are coming together and like some sort of unholy union or something, but it’s all, you know, we don’t know, we don’t know what happens and.

I wear it cut to black and I’m sitting alone in my living room. What the

Todd: fuck?

Craig: So weird. One of the weirdest movies I’ve ever seen, and there are so many things we’re already over time. There are so many things that we didn’t talk about.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: That I’m sure are important talks and, Oh man, that was a wild, wild ride of a movie.

Todd: But you mentioned it had a serious, strong, emotional effect on you, right?

I mean, and me too. And I feel like that’s the point. You know, we talk about this. When we talk about a lot of European movies about the geology pictures, how the plot doesn’t make any sense, it’s almost nonsensical, but it almost seems like that’s not important. Like the point is that the director of the maker of this film is trying to get an emotional response is trying to put you in a particular state, trying to catch you kind of in a sort of symbiosis.

With the emotional state of the characters in the movie. And I feel like this movie does that very effectively and I’m pretty sure that CIS director’s purpose. I have not seen any of his other films. This is my first introduction to him. But based on this, I’m definitely going to be seeking them out. And apparently he makes a lot of movies like this and always ends them with an apocalypse.

At the end he’s Polish. He was born in Poland. He had to flee Poland cause he couldn’t make his movies there and stuff. Uh, he’s got kind of this dream. Background, you know, he’s this background of tension. And then this movie set is probably the most autobiographical movie that he has ever made because he actually started writing it and making it when he was in the middle of a divorce with his wife.

So you can feel that emotion in this film. Uh, and to that extent, I feel like it’s really successful. I think it. Kind of does apparently what it set out to do. And even though it’s very difficult to unpack, it seems to accomplish its purpose, which is to get you feeling for the characters and throw a lot of very uncomfortable things at you and get you thinking about it.

And I’ll tell you just again, I’m going to say personally, Um, without giving too much detail that, you know, it’s not a a hundred percent inaccurate reflection of the kind of emotional feelings you go through with a partner when you hit a point where maybe you’re you’re, you start to get a little unsure and dramatic about your relationship, you know?

And in that respect, I feel like for me, anyway, personally, it hit a few uncomfortable places. You know, it, it had some moments for me now I’ve never, you know, Walked into my wife banging a tentacled, Oh God, close to that. But you know, like, yeah, it’s a wild ride. This film, I

Craig: get what you’re saying. And I, and I get that, you know, the dynamics between in relationships when you love somebody so much, and you’ve been with somebody for such a long time, it does get weird.

I can’t relate to this because it just seems so traumatic. And I think that the reason that it’s. Bothered me and stayed with me is maybe this is a very American thing, but I think that I was uncovered uncomfortable with the level of ambiguity. Like, I feel like I’m missing something or

Todd: no,

Craig: I don’t know.

But it, it definitely, I mean, I was just thinking about it and talking about it.

Todd: Like, I’m trying,

Craig: I’m talking to my sister, I’m talking to my partner, I’m talking to my friends, like trying to kind of summarize some of the key moments just to try to process them for myself. And I’m like, and then there’s this bloody creature in the closet.

And then she sit and then, I don’t know.

Todd: I don’t know. You’re uh, you’re an English teacher. Have you ever read ceremony by Leslie Marmon? Silko you ever read that out? It’s a bit of a classic of native American literature and the book is titled ceremony and reading the book is like going through a ceremony. It’s quite. Interesting. It’s very profound kind of experience that the author somehow ends up putting you in an emotional state, as you’re reading this book about some other characters.

And I feel like this movie serves that same purpose. It, it puts you through this state. It, it puts you through this same process of these characters in a way that we’re not used to, we’re used to relating with people on this sort of level II. I in a way Hollywood can be a little detached, right? Like we observe and we see, Oh yeah, I relate to that.

Or, Oh yeah. I had an experience like that, but a movie like this, like gets into you and gets to your emotions and it’s like, now you are almost feeling what they’re feeling and it’s very uncomfortable. Right.

Craig: Yeah, it definitely, it had a physical impact on me. Like I was anxious, like my heart was racing. I was tense.

Yeah. So yeah. I mean, I can, I’m glad that we I’m glad that we watched it. I don’t think that I would put myself through it again. Um,

Todd: and, and honestly, how, how many people would you recommend this movie to? You know, I mean, who would you say, Oh, you gotta go see this. Nobody,

Craig: nobody you, I guess.

Todd: But

Craig: it’s one of those things that I think I’ll just kind of like, keep like a dirty little secret.

It’s like when I read, um, American psycho, the book, when I read the book, when I was done with it, I threw it in the trash because I didn’t want anybody

Todd: else to. And that’s

Craig: kinda how I. That’s kind, kinda how I feel about this movie. Oh, thanks Jace.

Todd: Well, again, I will echo that. Thank you, chase for giving us this film to watch. Just talk about it’s certainly going to go down as one of our more interesting episodes of wonderful mortal. Fun conversations. If you out there have another idea of a movie to send them to us. You can look us up on Facebook.

He’s a look us up online, just Google Two Guys and a Chainsaw, and you’ll find our podcast. Please share it with a friend and also find our YouTube page. And if you haven’t yet, please subscribe to us there as well. So we can build those numbers until next time. I’m Todd and I’m Craig with two guys and a Chainsaw.

Also known by its original Italian title, Demoni, Demons is a Dario Argento-produced gore-fest by Mario Bava’s son, Lamberto Bava. Keep it in the family, I always say. It’s about some demons who wreak havoc in a movie theater and turn the people they kill into demons too in an increasingly madcap manner that is as over-the-top as it is incredibly satisfying. If you’re into this sort of thing, anyway.

Demons (1985)

Episode 216, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd

Craig: and I’m Craig

Todd: We’re taking a break from requests for a moment to do a movie that I’ve requested. It’s been on my list for ages and I’m finally. Super happy that Craig independently of me decided, eh, Oh, let’s give this one a whirl.

It is 1985’s Demons, an Italian horror film. And you know, I love me some Italian horror films. Especially, uh, when they’re associated with one Dario Argento. Now I was under the mistaken impression for years that Dario Argento actually directed this movie. But although when you look at the box cover, his name is prominently displayed.

It’s one of those, a film presented by Dario Argento. Right? And it turns out that the director of this movie is actually Lamberto Bava. Now Lamberto Bava is the son of Mario Bava. Mario Baba would be a contemporary of Dario Argento, uh, Lucia . I knew those were kind of like the three names really of, uh, of Jolo.

And horror in Italy, in the sixties and seventies, uh, Mario Bava did some really, really great stuff. And his son worked on some of his films as well as he grew up and, uh, followed in his footsteps a bit, uh, and went off in the horror direction. I’m really a fan of Mario Bava. I know we’re going to do some movies.

Uh, by him at some point. Um, but Dario Argento did have a hand in this Lamberto Bava did get around and work on our Gentles films. Uh, and so this movie came after he did a, giallo called A Blade in the Dark, an action film called Blast Fighter, a science fiction, horror film called Monster Shark. Uh, and then he wanted to do a trilogy.

His father did a, a movie called Black Sabbath. That’s the movie that kind of started out his own little trilogy and, you know, Argento has his trilogy that started out with Suspiria. That kind of thing. Even Fulci has his trilogy, right. The, started out with City of the Dead and then goes into, The Beyond, I think he calls it The.

Beyond Trilogy or City of the Dead Trilogy. I don’t know. Trilogies are a thing. Right? So, um, he wanted this film to kick off a trilogy and in some ways it did, there is a sequel to this, although apparently it’s less successful. We haven’t seen it. Uh, and there was a third movie in the series as well that he also directed.

Um, it’s written by a guy named Dardano saw Chetty and the writers came and went, um, Argento came and gave some opinions about it, blah, blah, blah. In the end for a movie that kind of comes from this pedigree and has all these different really well known hands, helping it out. I’m really surprised at what we ended up getting out of it.

Or maybe I shouldn’t be, I don’t know, like Italian horror is just this crazy thing. It’s, it’s almost all exploitive, right? Just like the spaghetti westerns were of the Western genre, but just like the spaghetti westerns. You get some real gems in there, like some real art craftsmanship and some artistry, and then to balance it out, you get some utter, just mindless, meaningless, garbage.

That’s just there to throw gore effects at you. And I do sort of feel like this movie false significantly in that realm. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. It really just depends on what you’re in the mood for. So I’d seen this on the shelves forever. It’s been on my list forever. I was really happy to watch it.

Craig, what made you decide that this was the week we’re going to do Demons?

Craig: I was, uh, you know, just looking around the internet and on one of the horror movie websites that I frequent, they did an article about horror movies that take place. At the movies. And I had seen a couple of them. In fact, we did popcorn on the show, uh, which was fun.

And I enjoyed that and I was just kind of thinking well, since we can’t go to the movies right now, uh, why don’t we, uh, why don’t we watch a movie about going to the movies? There you go. And I thought that we had maybe talked about it in passing and I figured it would be something that would be right up your alley and it looked, uh, interesting.

So, and, and, you know, it’s, it’s one of those movies that for whatever reason, I see the title of and imagery. From, you know, just in web articles and, and, uh, horror, film, documentaries, and that type of thing, but I had never seen it. And so I thought let’s, let’s give it a shot. See, what’s all about,

Todd: well, it’s all about something.

It’s all about a lot of stuff, but you’re right. This movie takes place in a movie theater and it gets a little meta in the beginning. And then. Kind of goes off in all these crazy directions, I think in the middle. Well, I mean, I didn’t actually sit down like I normally do and take notes on the plot. I kind of assumed that this was going to be an easy one to remember and whether or not we choose to do a play by play of every scene, you know, in this movie there really isn’t like you often say there really isn’t a lot to this.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: I mean, it’s this, the plot is extremely simple. The characters are just, um, Who cares, right? I mean, there’s, they’re memorable people in here, but they’re like, they’re like cardboard cutout stereotypes, right? Pretty much. It’s very much a movie goers movie, I guess. There’s. It’s just a big adventure kind of flick for people who like gore.

I kind of think it starts out with really promising was some great tension and cinematography. I thought of this woman named Cheryl who’s coming home from school or something and she’s on the subway. And she feels like she’s being followed at some point that the platform empties, but she hears footsteps behind her.

And I thought it was, there was a really. Quite a good scene, actually. Um, and it turns out to be this man, uh, who was wearing kind of this half mask. It’s a silvery demon mask on half his face. And apparently is some kind of gimmick for he is handing out free tickets to a screening of a brand new horror movie at a local theater.

I’m not sure where this is supposed to take place. I know it was filmed in Berlin, I guess it’s supposed to take place in Berlin too, because they don’t really do anything to try to. To make it look like another city. Right? So she’s in the Berlin subway and she gets two tickets to the screening at the Metropol and she talks to another friend of hers named Kathy.

And they ended up going in together to the theater and they meet up with some friends. Now, I don’t know if these were people that they, that they knew beforehand, I guess they kind of were.

Craig: No, no, no, no. I mean, well first I just wanted to say that the guy in the mask that you were talking about that as far as design goes, that was one of my favorite things from the whole movie.

That mask was really cool. It was like kind of a eighties metal Phantom of the Opera mask in that it just covered half of it. Face, but it also kind of seemed like the mask was fused to his face. Like the edges of it were maybe kind of under his skin and it was a pretty scary, but at the same time, if you saw somebody in that costume handing out, you know, flyers or tickets for a free movie, you’d probably just think, Oh, wow.

Great makeup. But, uh, you know, in the context of the movie, you’re thinking, Oh, okay, who is this guy? Uh, but yeah, they go to the Metropol and there’s a whole big scene of just the patrons arriving. And it’s just a whole hodgepodge of, like you said, stereotypical people like the black kind of shafts. Pimp type guy.

And he’s got a couple of girls with him and they’re kind of the troublemakers. Uh, you’ve got Cheryl and Kathy, who are the kind of naive school girls though. You know, they’re clearly women, they’re not young young girls. Um, and they meet up with a couple of guys, George and Ken, George, I would say is your typical eighties.

Good looking guy. He reminded me of, uh, the bad guy from karate kid. He kind of looked like that guy. And, uh, the two guys are kind of flirting with the girls. They ended up going down and sitting right next to them in this big theater to watch this screening. And there’s just, like I said, a hodgepodge of other people, um, a blind guy gets led in by a beautiful woman who at first I thought was his.

Girlfriend, but I think it ended up that maybe it was his daughter. Wasn’t real sure about that. Um, a kid named Tom and like a sailor shirt and his girlfriend, Hannah, and then just a bunch of other random people. It’s not a full theater, but there’s quite a few people there. Uh, and they sit down to watch this movie and they don’t even know what it is.

Like before they go in, Kathy’s like, Oh, I hope it’s not a horror movie. I hate horror movies. But when they go in, even in the lobby, like the lobby is decked out, like all kinds of scary art deco with some kind of, you know, horrific imagery and there’s one prominent featured thing in the middle. Which is a motorcycle of all things or like a dirt bike or something with this scary looking silver mask hanging off of it.

And, uh, at 1.1 of the girls who was with. Tony, um, Rosemary puts the mask on and it’s like, you know, goofing around. Um, Oh, don’t I look scary. That kind of thing. When she takes the mask off, um, it cuts her face. Just, just a little cut on her face, but enough to draw blood and anybody who’s seen these kinds of movies knows that.

Todd: Bad

Craig: news. Right. But then they get into the theater and the movie starts, and it seems like a pretty typical eighties horror movie. You’ve got, you know, a couple of couples, young people riding motorcycles around this scary old mansion and through their dialogue. Meanwhile, we keep cutting back and forth.

We cut back and forth from the movie within the movie to the people in the audience, kind of reacting. And the people in the audience are pretty darn scared. They’re

Todd: terrified. A

Craig: scary house

Todd: dialogue.

Craig: According to an old legend Nostradamus was buried here. Nostradamus sounds like a rock group to me. Yeah.

Top of the pops in 1500.

So tell me computer brain,

Todd: while it was kind of a fortune teller,

Craig: a prophet from the 16th century, he

Todd: predicted a whole

Craig: mess of things that have come true, such as for example, the discovery of Neptune and Uranus Hitler, world Wars, the coming of the demons that hasn’t happened.

Todd: Not yet.

Craig: And the dialogue too is all dubbed.

Now I didn’t read too much about this. Did they film it in English and then just dub other actors voices over? Cause it looked like their mouths pretty much matched up with what they were saying, but it was clearly a dub.

Todd: Yeah. And like a lot of these Italian films in order to save money or just to kind of get a certain quality level of, they would often film them in English.

And then, uh, you know, maybe half of the actors are Italian or somewhat international, so maybe their English isn’t that great, but you know, they could speak it, but we don’t care too much for their voice. And so another actor will come in and just dub the same English over them. I think some of the actors did in fact have their own dialogue, but the fact of the matter is that even those who probably.

You’re hearing their voice. It’s still got dubbed afterwards and that does lead, you know, that’s something that you kind of have to get over when you’re watching these Italian, these older Italian films is that it does lend a certain annoyance, I guess. Well, you can tell it’s dubbed, right?

Craig: Yeah. It’s not.

You can tell

Todd: it’s not just the, the, the lips don’t quite match up or whatever, but

Craig: sometimes the lines sound quality.

Todd: Yeah. It’s just a little too perfect. Right?

Craig: Yeah. And it didn’t bother me. I mean, typically, you know, if I’m watching a foreign film and I have. The choice of watching it in the original language with subtitles or the dub, usually, unless I’m feeling really lazy.

Um, I’ll watch in, in the original language with the subtitles, because there are nuances in people’s performances based on their voices in this, I noticed right away that it was a dub, but like you said, I just got over it very quickly. And, and whereas. It was very obvious to me in the beginning, by the end, I wasn’t even thinking about it.

So it was not that big a deal. But anyway, this movie is going on and, and these kids in the movie are at this old mansion or something. And, uh, one of the girls finds a plaque or something on the outside wall. No, not this. It’s an inscription or something,

Todd: what’s it say

Craig: they will make cemeteries, their cathedrals and tubes your cities.

Which I believe is the tagline for our movie.

Right. That’s

Todd: funny how they tied that in. Yeah, that’s good.

Craig: You know, it’s just kind of some silly nonsense where they’re like, Oh, legend, has it that no stra Domus was buried here and, uh, Nostradamus prophesized the coming of demons. And so they explore. For five seconds and until they find  tomb, it’s so funny.

I

Todd: love this. I could, I could only see this movie within a movie as a parody of horror movies. I mean, it’s not, it can’t be anything, but it’s so ridiculous. The dialogue is so bad. So stilted, not that this movie has the best dialogue in the world, but, but this movie within the movie tops at a hundred percent and, uh, yeah, they find no is to like nothing,

Craig: you know, strangely enough.

I felt like the quality of the movie they were watching was almost identical to the quality of the movie that we were watching. Like I assume they were directly, I assumed that the movie within the movie was also directed by Lamberto Bava well, similar in tone,

Todd: they originally had planned to use another film, I think when a full cheese movies, uh, as the movie within a movie, but at least that was suggested to save costs.

And I think that both Argento and Lamberto decide, you know, kind of pushed, no, we, we really need to make our own film within this film. And so that’s what they ended up doing.

Craig: I’m glad they did. I mean, it’s fun. And, uh, immediately, you know, like you said, there’s like some Metta stuff going on because in Nostradamus, this tomb, they find a book written in Latin.

Of course, one of the guys is like, Oh, it’s in Latin. I can’t read it. Wait. Yeah, I can

Oh, wait, I forgot. I do read Latin.

So he reads something and he, and, and they in there, they also find a mask, the same mask that was out in the lobby. One of the guys is goofing around and puts on the mask and the guy who’s reading the Latin book is like, Oh no, don’t do that.

Todd: No, he says, don’t do that.

Craig: CorVel wears. It becomes a demon.

Todd: How do you know?

Craig: It says here, whoever wears, it becomes a demon.

That’s pretty funny. So anyway, he, he puts on the mask and then he’s goofing around and the girls are like, it’s not funny. Take it up. So he takes it off. And just like with Rosemary, the mask cuts him. As well on the face, same exact place. It looks just the same as it looks on. Rosemary’s face at that very moment.

Rosemary reaches up to touch the wound on her face and it’s bleeding again. And so she excuses herself. To the bathroom. And even on the way to the bathroom, you can tell that something’s off. Like she’s feeling sick. Something’s not right. She gets to the bathroom and she’s looking in the mirror and she’s looking at her face and right away you can tell, Oh, here it comes.

Like here comes the first big effect because you can tell that one half of her face is now, you know, synthetic some makeup, plastic, or whatever it is. And she’s poking at the thing on her face. And it swells up like a zit from hell and pops

Todd: all over

Craig: in a very disgusting and all over. And you know, there’s other things going on in the theater, like the girl who brought in the blind guy, his bone, and some guy in the back, like I don’t even.

I don’t even know what was going on there.

Todd: I don’t want to sound, you know, insensitive or whatever, but bringing the blind man to the movie theater. I mean, I know, I know as a blind person, you can go see movies, but I feel like in this film, they kind of made fun of it a little

Craig: bit. Yeah. It was a joke

Todd: because she’s turning to him and she’s in it.

And he’s asking her like, questions, like I think going into the two now and she’s like, yeah. And he

Craig: says,

are you scared? Yes, I

Todd: am. Yes.

Craig: I’m scared too. Like what the

Todd: hell are these people never seen a movie with any tension whatsoever.

Craig: Yeah. And he’s totally a movie talker. It’s funny. It’s like going to the movies with my dad. My dad’s a big movie talker and I’m like, dad show. Just watch it. I don’t know either I’m watching it too,

Todd: my first time to these questions. Uh,

Craig: but anyway. Okay. So then the other girl who was with. Tony gets up to go check on Rosemary. And she goes into the bathroom and she sees blood all over the sink. And I think she hears maybe some whimpering or something from the stall. So she goes in and she looks, and she finds Rosemary and one of the stalls, but Rosemary is kind of.

Huddled down so that you can’t see her face, you can only see the back of her head. And when she finally turns around, she’s full out demon, she’s got like crazy green demonize and her face is all gross and veiny and pissy and nasty. D, and she’s got these, you know, long witchy fingers with a crazy long nails.

And so she chases Rosemary chases, the other girl through the lobby

Todd: into like a curtain maze. Yeah.

Craig: It’s well, and, and like she swipes at her and gets like she caused her neck. Like this other girl has a huge claw wound on her neck. And you’re right. First she ends up like in a curtain maze, like she’s trapped in these theater curtains.

I don’t even know what that was all about, but she ends up behind the screen of the film and I left. Why is it that, that I always get excited? Like, it’s like, it’s like the scene in gremlins when they end up behind the screen and yeah. I don’t know, it’s just something magical. Like, Ooh, I’ve never been behind the screen before.

Todd: It’s like, I’m in the mood. And I know, uh,

Craig: and it’s fun because she’s like this, apparently this. Being a demon is transferable. It’s like zombies. Like if you get bit or scratched or whatever, then you’re infected too. And so this other girl’s behind the screen and she starts transforming and she’s screaming and moaning.

Meanwhile, on the screen, people have turned into demons and our cha you know, like the guys are demons and they’re chasing the girls around and there’s stabbing and all kinds of other Gore effects going on there. But the people in the audience. Start to see or hear that the screams sound too real. And, uh, the girl Kathy is like, no, something’s wrong.

There’s somebody behind the screen. And eventually this Chicky pops through bursts through the screen and falls to the ground and everybody kind of gets up and surrounds her. And she goes through the transformation right in front of their eyes and jumps up and starts. Chaos. And then that is basically the rest of the movie.

Like the movie, the movie within the movie is over and now it is just demons chasing people around in this theater, in which they are mysteriously and supernaturally trapped for the next 45 minutes.

Todd: Yeah. I mean, that’s basically all we can say about it. I think it gets just more and more crazy. And you know, when you, when you watch the movie, you realize, and it was only after they showed a full shot of the audience and they, they did this fairly early on that I realized there aren’t a ton of people in this theater.

And so what’s kind of funny is, is that the whole audience gets up as a group, goes up to investigate, you know, this one demon lunges out at them. And then they kind of take care of it as a group. And then as a group, they all go down the aisle to go outside and start clawing at the doors, which like you said, there’s suddenly a wall where the entrance should be.

Um, and then, you know, they turn back and they go back into the theater and they start. It’s way too easy to kick the chairs of this movie theater over, Oh, separate them from the floor and start piling them up by the doors. But they do that in order to keep the demons out. There’s a whole bunch of going around and investigating.

And at one point they think it’s the projector. They say, Oh, the movie’s doing this. You saw what happened to Cheryl. She put on the mask and she got cut. I think it’s the pimp who says this. She put on the mask and she got cut. That’s what happened in the movie. So we got to go up and stop the movie. And so then they go up into the screening room as a group.

It’s like 15 people

Craig: go into least

Todd: the projection. Yeah. And then, Oh my God, it’s automatic. There hasn’t been a person here this whole time. So they smash up the machines. And in the meantime, the blind guys. Handler daughter, you said,

Craig: I, I guess like, like I said, I thought that it was his girlfriend, but then I didn’t understand why she was boning.

Somebody else in the back. My favorite part was before she was boning, the guy in the back, this guy came down and sat next to her. I assume she knew him before. I don’t know. She’s sitting between the blind guy and this other guy. It starts, full-out making out with the other guy completely unbeknownst to the blind guy, right on the other side.

Yeah. And when I say, and when I say making out I’m being subtle, because they were getting some hanky panky going on there

Todd: to say the least.

Craig: And at that time I was still thinking it was like his girlfriend and I’m like, dang, you guys are like big. Thrill seekers like, but anyway, I think it was his daughter. It ultimately doesn’t matter,

Todd: but some girl,

Craig: yeah. She’s she, and the guy that she was making out with in the back had had a rope strung around both of their heads at the same time.

Like, like tying them together. And I guess it. I don’t know, there was lots of blood, like, I guess, uh, it was cutting into their scan or something, but the blind guy finds her dead and then he gets his eyeballs clot out,

Todd: which there’s a lot of blood just period in this movie. I mean, it’s, it’s definitely.

The movie exists just to show us a bunch of Gore. I mean, I’m pretty certain that that was the ultimate intent of this film, that these effects are not bad, actually for eighties, lower budget, special Gore effects. The thing is it’s and what’s kind of the problem with them. Is it, they linger so long. I mean, it’s just, they want to show us every little bit of this effect that, you know, sometimes when you linger a little too long on these scenes, then you see that it’s really just plastic and things are kind of stretching on naturally.

So it kind of loses a little bit of that, but, but if this is the kind of thing you’re into, anyway, I think at 1.1 of the demons jumps up behind a guy and like, Digs or claws into his neck and like basically rips his neck open from the middle.

Craig: Yep. Yep.

Todd: This guy, the blind guy gets his eyes clawed out, Hardy, har har, um, you know, with two fingers in there and a hand in the mouth and just kind of almost like his skull is just, you know, candy to be crushed.

Ah, yeah. And the pimp gets it in an interesting way. I don’t remember how he got, do you remember how did the PMT,

Craig: okay, so you were talking about how they were. Throwing all the chairs up in front of the doors that they’re actually in the balcony at that point. So it doesn’t, yeah, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but they, I guess, quarantine themselves off in the balcony.

Um, but. The guy who’d been making out with the blind guy’s daughter, the rope that he had been strangled with, I guess he had also been hung from the balcony with the rope. Um, so then when, uh, they were, they were getting ready to cut the rope so that nobody, none of the zombies, I just keep saying zombies, they’re not they’re demons.

Um, could to keep them from climbing up it. They’re going to cut the rope, but apparently they’re too late because that guy gets up there and he attacks Tony, a couple of them attack Tony. And somehow they end up going over the balcony again. But then Tony and like both the zombies hanging off of him are just dangling from the rope and, uh, George.

The good looking hero, guy cuts the rope and they dropped down there. And there’s another scene. I don’t remember who it was, but they’re fighting some demon on the balcony and they throw it off the balcony. Right on top of this girl, like hiding the aisles, the Tana, the girl. But like she’s, you know, being all in Cognito, like army crawling through like the seats and they throw this demon right on top of her and it just pukes gallons of blood and pus all over.

And it goes on for, you know, probably not more than five seconds, but

Todd: it’s like two minutes. At one point, I couldn’t figure out if he was puking blood or if the effect was supposed to be that he was chomping her down and blood was just spraying everywhere, but I’m pretty sure she was just puking blood because she does manage to get out from under him for a moment.

But yeah.

Craig: Well, and then she’s mysteriously. Okay. And not covered in blood. Moving forward. Don’t really know how that works out. And like you said, it really is. I mean, there are breaks in the action because they do kind of, you know, seal themselves off and, and the demons kind of, aren’t getting to them. And some people like Hannah and her guy, Tom, the sailor shirt guy are off on their own.

And so they’re trying to navigate. By themselves. And there’s a scene where they try to escape through the air vents, um, which isn’t as tense as I think they wanted it to be. Um,

Todd: they get like about 12 feet and they’re in the vents and she says something like,

Craig: we’re going to make it. This is a great idea.

Todd: I’m like, Oh my God. How are we going to get out of here? And like a demon comes up behind them, right in the air vents.

Craig: I was confused what was happening at first because the boy Tom hears scratching behind him. And then. Um, we see the demon clause. So it seems like a demon is following them, but then they come to a fork and he maneuvers and says, Hannah, you go ahead of me.

And so she does, and he’s like, wait a second. Now it doesn’t make any sense. Now it sounds like it’s in front of us. Well, I finally figured out it’s because Hannah was turning, it was her, she was the one making the noise. And her hands had already turned. And, uh, eventually after he says, wait a second, now it’s in front of us.

I don’t get it. She turns around and she’s a demon and she kills him. But, you know, you’ve, you’ve mentioned, uh, the Gore effects you’re right. The movie is just a vehicle for that. You know, the plot is just paper thin, but I didn’t mind at all. I do really like these older, practical effects. They’re fun to watch.

Todd: Yes. They are

Craig: the first, uh, person who turns, uh, the, our girl Rosemary, her transformation while yes, clearly artificial was really cool to watch and, uh, you know, they had clearly. Built her whole head and they do this, there was this whole effect where her tongue comes out and it’s like a foot long and you’re right.

They do linger on it a long time and because they linger on it and because it’s well lit, um, you can see it’s, you know, it’s, it’s a dummy it’s, it’s not. It doesn’t look real, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t look cool. It does look cool. And a lot of these effects did, and I liked that it was, you know, kind of soaked in blood and they just really kind of went all out.

I wouldn’t say that this is my type of movie, but I had fun watching this movie. I thought it was a lot of fun to watch. There were random things like. So they’re all, you know, hold up in the theater or whatever, then all of a sudden we’re with a bunch of thugs in a car note, snorting cocaine out of a Coca Cola can out of a Cola

Todd: can.

Craig: And at first I thought that they were because they’re snorting it through a bendy straw. So at first I thought that they were literally sucking Coca-Cola up into their nose.

Todd: Like. What is happening. It was bizarre. And it’s, this reminded me a bit of trauma, right? Because these are typical trauma characters sort of pumped up, pumped up I’m high on cocaine or whatever, uh, driving down the street and acting crazy.

Just their dialogue was insanely hilarious. There’s a girl in the backseat named Nina and she is barely wearing. Anything on top a dude named hot dog and ripper and baby pig even has kind of like a piggish nose and they’re, they’re just shouting junk, back and forth to me like, like Nina at one point picks up a photo and shows it to rip her in the front seat and says, this was me when I was only one year old.

And he goes, Already selling your twat. Huh?

just dogging on this girl. But then he hits a bump or something and cocaine spills all over the floor, which pisses him off. So he stops the car, turns around and says, You’re all gonna pick that up every single last gram. And what did they do? They literally stopped by the razor blades and start to scrape cocaine off of the seats.

And I’m like, is this, is this really where this movie? Yeah. It’s choosing to spend its time, but then I’m the guy who’s holding this razorblade and as I’m scraping up, this cocaine sees that. Uh, Nina has some cocaine spilled down her pretty much open shirt. And so with the razorblade, he starts scraping the cocaine up her belly, and she’s looking at him like, like it’s kind of a turn on and he starts scraping it up towards her breast and up over her nipple in this sort of dangerous way.

And. I mean, what an interesting scene.

Craig: It was strange. Like, it just seemed very out of place. Like whatever. I don’t have any problem with nudity. I, you come to expect that from these types of movies, but like, it was just so random. It had nothing to do with anything. It was like, it was clearly just let’s get a long closeup of her naked breast with this.

With, with the razorblade, you know, going over her nipple. And eventually he does cut her, which I thought maybe would have some significance, but it doesn’t

Todd: no, well, thankfully not under nipple. Cause that would be scary

Craig: year. Right? Nut. It was just on her breasts. You’re right.

Todd: This scene apparently was pretty controversial and got cut out of the release in a lot of places.

Uh, in fact, when it was put on home video and that kind of thing. In a number of countries. Um, they cut this scene out. It’s one of the more notorious scenes in the movie apparently, but, uh, it’s, it’s out there now on, uh, anything you can find like on shutter we watched on shutter, right. We saw the fully

Craig: online version.

Yeah. And that’s, I mean, the thing is you could easily cut it because it has nothing to do with anything. I mean, it’s just, yeah. It’s just for erotic stimulation. I mean, that’s the only thing that. Or, and then so eventually, like they’re just sitting on the side of the road in this stolen car, snorting, more cocaine than.

Todd: I’ve ever.

Craig: Well, I have never really seen any cocaine, but, uh, so any cocaine would be more than I’d seen, but yeah, but, uh, but eventually the cops pull up and chase them and they end up, uh, outside the movie theater and then the movie theater doors mysteriously opened for them. So they end up in the theater too.

And one would think that. There would be, I just don’t even know, like I was thinking, Oh, okay. Well now the story is going to get interesting because they’re in there too. And there’s going to be some kind of entry. No, I mean, it was just. More getting more people in there too, right. Chased around and killed

Todd: you’re right.

It just sort of begs the question. Why did we spend so much time getting, getting to know these characters and their cocaine habit in the car when they’re just going to pop in and just be more victims in the movie?

Craig: I think part of the reason for it was so that they could showcase their pretty fucking rad soundtrack.

Todd: Yes.

Craig: How did they get all of these huge. Rock bands from the eighties. To do this. I mean, I guess they must’ve just paid for it. I don’t know, but it’s got a great eighties rock soundtrack with huge name bands and performers.

Todd: And this is my jam. I mean, hair metal, heavy metal in the eighties. I mean, there’s a whole shot, a whole list of them in the credits at the beginning of the movie and my mouth just dropped.

I’m like, we’re going to hear this in this film, like Motley crew and I

Craig: mean, just Billy idol, maybe black Sabbath. I don’t remember. I didn’t write them all down, but huge names.

Todd: Yeah. And actually that was a great aspect of this movie too. And I think contributed a lot to my enjoyment of it. Like you said, you got to kind of shut your brain off for this one.

Just go with the flow. And there’s just a lot of blood and a lot of Gore and a lot of senseless stuff happening and characters, you know, care about, but it’s all happening. To this absolutely awesome rock and eighties type metal, hard rock soundtrack,

Craig: but there is also a score. Uh, and I really liked the score.

I mean, even in just the opening scene, the opening scene, um, In the subway. There’s probably the first five minutes of the movie. There’s no dialogue. You just are seeing the actors, but it’s set against this score. Um, and I was impressed right away,

Todd: Claudia. Simonetti, I guess is how you say, I don’t know.

How’s your Italian, he did a ton of music for obviously for Argento and we love our Gentiles. If he was the composer for Suspiria. Yeah. Deep red profundo. Raso that we did, which I absolutely love the music for obviously this one and a lot of the ones that came after it, like opera and. Oh, yeah, it’s good.

I mean, that’s another thing and there’s almost just a whole genre. Isn’t there of scores for Italian horror films of the sixties and seventies and eighties. Right. It’s just, it has a particular feel and it’s good. It’s like gritty and it’s kind of intense and it’s a little synthy and there’s just something about it.

That’s just unique. Right? Yeah, we’re getting on the other side of the, of the ocean at that time. Just really fun.

Craig: Yeah, definitely. You know, so then everybody’s back, uh, in the theater and I don’t know. Oh, and then finally, at some point, the people in the balcony are just sitting around, uh, at this point, like waiting to be rescued and they hear something and they’re like, Oh, we’re being rescued.

So most of them start taking down the barricade. But George and Cheryl and Kathy and Ken are like, no, don’t, you know, you’re going to let the demons in here, but nobody’s listening. And so, as it turns out, the demons are coming and that’s where you get the great shot. That’s on the box. Art of these demons, like coming up, it’s really just.

Up a hallway or up a staircase or something in the theater. Um, but it kind of looks like they’re cresting a Hill and, um, they’re lit from behind and their eyes are glowing and it’s just this mob of demons and it looks, it looks really cool.

Todd: Yeah. Um, apparently that, that I effect, uh, was something that, um, the director came up with on the spur of the moment.

Uh, and it was achieved. I thought they used lights or something, but it was just little pieces of reflective tape that they put over their eyes and just kind of obliquely, shown a light at them. And it looks fantastic. Right?

Craig: Yeah, it looks really cool. I mean, if you turn your mind off to the fact that their eyes haven’t glowed before,

Todd: or since.

Craig: But that’s okay. It looks great. And that’s, I guess kinda, you know, the big showdown where again, the mob of demons attacks the theater goers, but, um, Cheryl and George and Ken and Kathy crawl underneath what’s left of the rebel and they get out. But as soon as they get out, um, Kathy is acting weird. Like she’s only semi-conscious at first.

And then, uh, she starts talking weird, like asking them who they are, like, who are you? Who am I? She, she turns into a demon pretty quickly and they kill her. I don’t. Rum, I guess can like beats her down with a chair. Oh. But then there was another really cool effect after he beat her down with the chair she’s on all fours, like on her knees and on her hands and her back starts to arch and then it splits open and a con like a fully formed demon emerges out of her back again, again, not at all in keeping with what we’ve seen so far.

That’s so cool.

Todd: Yeah. It’s, it’s pretty awesome. I mean, it, it makes no sense whatsoever. It doesn’t even seem like physically possible, but it’s an awesome effect. And that’s another thing I think you’ll see on the box art, um, this face and I thought the makeup was quite good, you know, and the makeup on this thing, I thought we’d see more of this deem.

And I thought, thought this would be like the big, bad monster demon that were kind of in their Croft for awhile. And, uh, He just kind of comes and goes. I’m not sure if we ever see what ends up happening to him.

Craig: I don’t remember. I, I, I know that it scratches or bites. Can, um, and then, and so Ken knows he’s going to turn, so he tries to run away, but they follow him into the lobby and, and, and he’s turning and he’s begging George to kill him because he doesn’t want to be a demon.

And he pulls a frickin samurai sword, like off the wall.

Todd: So in this theater, they’ve got one hanging

Craig: there and then. And, and so, uh, he does, he turns Phil, he begs, uh, George to kill him. So George does. And then, and then Cathy is, for some reason, I don’t remember not Kathy, Cheryl is alone in the theater and like the demons are like surrounding her.

And so incomes George on a motorcycle with. The samurai store

and, and he, like, he writes up to where Kathy is and like he’s slicing demons along the way. And he grabs her and throws her on the back of his motorcycle. And then they just do laps around the inside of the theater.

Todd: It’s like, It’s like nine year old Todd in the eighties wrote this movie, right.

Craig: Set a samurai

Todd: sword.

He’s going to be on a motorcycle and he’s going to slash divas as he’s driving by with the girl on the back. It’s great. It’s fantastic. And then. Because why not a giant helicopter falls through the ceiling?

Craig: Well, the other, the other thing that I do like about this scene, the samurai scene is that we get to see a lot of the characters from early in the movie as, as demons now.

Um, and that was kind of fun. Like Tony, the pimp is one of them, the, uh, the sexy redhead usherette, who we haven’t even mentioned. Who played her? Was that Futura Argento? Is that who or was she a different role? I know that fewer or fewer. However you say your name is in the movie. No, that she was Hannah. Um, so I’m not sure who, uh, the, the sexy red head was.

Um, but. She is a czar or a demon at this point, which surprised me because early on in the movie, I assumed that she was part of the whole demon conspiracy. She was so

Todd: mysterious and she’s wandering around and she has got that weird look and she’s closing curtains and stuff like, yeah.

Craig: But anyway, she’s, she’s a demon in this scene, but then you’re right.

They’re like, wait a second. Do you hear that? And then the whole helicopter just falls through the roof fell just like just sins through the

Todd: roof. Did I miss something here where a helicopter like landed or something?

Craig: No joke. We had never seen a helicopter before.

Todd: This was, this was the best, this at this point I was like, yeah, again, eight year old Todd, and then a helicopter is going to fall from the ceiling and they jumped to the helicopter and there’s still demons in there.

And the helicopter by the way, looks fake as hell. But he does manage to get it started a little bit and the blade spin around and cut a couple of demons. You know, this movie is a lot like dead alive, isn’t it?

Craig: Yeah, it is.

Todd: Feels like dead, alive, owes a lot to this film. It’s. It’s really the same kind of thing.

Right. Just a whole bunch of gourd by the end.

Craig: Well, and yeah, it has a very return of the living dead vibe to it also.

Todd: Right.

Craig: But yeah. Okay. So then, well, yeah, they, they, he it’s so stupid that he starts the rotor and it kills a bunch of them. And then in a completely inexplicable way, he somehow rigs up some sort of like, Police system shoots them up to the roof.

I have no idea how that worked, but they get up to the roof where they find the masked man from the beginning of the movie. There is no explanation, nothing like this would be the part of most movies where he would like divulge his evil plan. But, but no, he’s just up there and he tries to throw them back in the hole and eventually, uh, they get power over him and.

The two of them, like, are both like pushing down on his back. Um, and they push his head down onto these huge metal spikes, um,

Todd: like the rebar sticking out from the roof.

Craig: Exactly, exactly. And then, okay, so then, you know, big reveal, they run to the edge of the building and they look out and the city is like an apocalyptic.

Hellscape like. This has not just been confined to the theater or fair to originally was it has burst out now. Um, and there are demons everywhere,

Todd: like within the last hour, basically. I mean, I mean, we saw the punks come in about halfway through the movie and everything seemed normal then. And the movie is really only like an hour and a half long.

So our 40, so. Yeah, within the last 45 minutes or so, the entire city has been covered with demons and people have the wherewithal and the means to fight back. Cause that’s kind of what’s happening there, fires everywhere and stuff and what they, they somehow get down to the ground. What do they repel down or climb the ladder down or something.

And there’s a car that pulls up and. It’s full of light. It’s like, there’s like a family in there. What’s like a Jeep, right. And there’s a guy and his wife and daughter and their son and presumably, and she, you know, jumps up and she’s shooting demons and a get in, get in the car and it’s. Funny. It’s kind of hilarious.

Craig: Hilarious.

Todd: It’s clearly this like very suburban domestic family who suddenly again, within the last 30 minutes has, you know, learned how to take care of themselves and survive.

Craig: Yeah. This all American like blonde eight year old with like a huge assault rifle.

Todd: Pick up a gun. Floor.

Craig: There’s more, there’s more weapons in the back.

And like he picks up a mission like an Uzi

God, and they start driving off, you know, into the, not literally the sunset, but start driving off and. George is like, where are we going? And they’re like the countryside. We saw some lights in the sky. We think maybe, I don’t know what they think.

Todd: There’s humanity there or something.

Craig: Yeah. Then the credit starts.

You’re also, I thought the movie was over and I almost turned it off, but I’m glad I didn’t because it wasn’t over

Todd: yet. That was

Craig: an issue. Did you stick around? Yeah, I was gonna say, did you stick her out for that last part? Yeah.

Todd: I did, but that was a real interesting, fake out. Wasn’t it? Like the credit starts to roll Ben suddenly, uh, you know, it’s just showing them and I thought, Oh, that might be a little something, you know, that they show or whatever.

Cause there’s still action happening behind them. And then some of the credits stop rolling because a Sheryl has turned into a demon. And so there’s a bit of a struggle in the car and they kick her out,

Craig: just leave her in the road

Todd: and keep driving.

Craig: I thought, I thought that I really liked it used me. It made me smile and you know, it’s kind of a subversion because she was the first character we were introduced to.

She was the nice girl. Um, you just expect that she’s going to be the final girl. Yeah. And then they, she turns into a demon, they just throw her out of the car

Todd: and by the way, um, her boyfriend or whatever, cause they had their moments and things like that doesn’t even seem to care now.

Craig: Well, they just met a couple hours ago.

Todd: That’s true. But it seemed like they were trying to build something, you know, between them. Yeah. And he, by the way, he was. Well, he was pretty stud I mean, by the end of it, he kind of looked like Rambo, right. He has had grease on his face and his shirt was ripped in all the right places. And, uh, he looked like a Bruce Willis, you know, 1985 right there at the end.

His, his transformation was the most impressive of all.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, he ended up being the hero in the end,

Todd: but. Regardless of the fact that we barely saw him through the movie until those key scenes at the end. Right. And that was just the way the movie was. As far as characters went, the movie didn’t really care about the characters.

Right. We didn’t really follow them. There was no through line. No, no backstories, no subplots, no, nothing. Just, here’s a bunch of demons and theater ripping people up

Craig: and I was fine with it. I mean, I. I didn’t, I didn’t read anything about it before. Like I said, I’ve seen some imagery, I may have seen a couple of, you know, just real quick clips of some of the special effects and things.

Uh, but I didn’t know a whole lot going in, but this is kind of what I expected and kind of what I was hoping for. Um, it was a fun, no brainer, eye candy kind of movie. Um, and for the most part, it was pretty. Fast paced. I mean, there were some strange detours, like the people in the car, you know, the punks in the car or whatever, which was odd, but you know, it never got slower, boring.

No, and it was fun. I had fun watching it. I might one day even watch it again.

Todd: I probably would, especially having watched it a first time, you know, I mean, knowing that this isn’t going to be a more subtle. Atmospheric, uh, Argento type production, but it’s going to be more along the lines of a full cheek sort of Gore Fest.

That I’m fine with that. Sometimes that’s what I want to see. You know, sometimes that’s what I’m in the mood for it. And this movie, like kind of like dead alive, just delivers it in spades. This is what you’re coming here for. We’re going to go all out and put all of our money into this. And I guess the movie was quite successful in Italy.

It beat out a lot of other more popular films in the States anyway, at the time. Um, and again, spawned a sequel. Which I hear is not as good, but I’d be interested in watching. Yeah. And you know, Craig, this is good. I’m glad to hear your final assessment on this because I always worry a little bit when we turn on these Italian horror films, um, whether or not Craig is going to enjoy himself.

So. I’m glad that this time around you, uh, you found something to like here.

Craig: Yeah, I liked it. It was, you know, good eighties fun. I’ve said it a bazillion times. It’ll come as no surprise to anybody who’s listened to any of our episodes. I love practical effects. Um, and they just, they abound here and they look good and creepy and bloody and gross.

And, uh, yeah, it was a lot of fun. I give it a thumbs up.

Todd: Cool me too. Well, thanks again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us online to search for two guys and a chainsaw. We’re slowly putting more videos up on our YouTube channel. Please go there and subscribe to that channel.

If you haven’t. We want to build up to a hundred subscribers so we can do some more stuff with that. And also just kind of build a different kind of audience. Also, if you have a request for us, we’re still doing requests this month. So just a log onto our website or our Facebook page. Leave us a comment in one of those places and we’ll try to get to it as soon as possible. Until next time, I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig

Todd: with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

This week’s episode is not a request, but just something we wanted to do. Both of us read the book this film was based on, so it added another dimension to our discussion about this killer plant thriller in the wilds of Central America.

The Ruins (2008)

Episode 215, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: and I’m Craig

Todd: Continuing with requests, this one today comes to us from Joseph. It is The Ruins from 2008. I read the novel, uh, shortly after it came out and, you know, I don’t normally just run to a shelf and see something that I never heard of before. Pick it up and go, Oh, that looks interesting.

And then buy it and read it right away. Like usually that’s not the way I operate, but I think, uh, at the time I was on a trip somewhere, it was a pretty big overseas flight. And this novel had just come out. And I think Stephen King had said something pretty nice about the author and the author himself being a journalist.

This was actually not the first thing he had written obviously, but the first novel he had written, uh, and actually got a lot of encouragement from Stephen King. So I read a little bit of that and I thought, Oh, this, this, this would be interesting. Nice to read a first time novel. From a first-time novelist, who’s been mentored in some way and it’s horror.

And unlike you, Craig, I don’t, I don’t usually sit down and read a lot of horror. You know, I read mysteries and thrillers and Stephen King, which can be horror from time to time, but I don’t usually seek this stuff out and I remembered really enjoying the book. It was different enough, but. Still had that oddly sort of pulpy feel of this, just this whole scenario.

And this whole situation seemed a little bit familiar. Then when the movie came out, I watched it and, uh, it was okay. So, um, I was anxious to revisit it this time around having some distance between the last time I saw the movie and some distance from the time I read the novel. So I don’t remember a lot about the book anymore.

I haven’t gone back and looked up anything about it before our talk. So I’m, I know you’ve read it to Craig, right? So maybe you can help. Fill in the gaps a

Craig: little bit. Yeah, it’s funny. We actually have kind of a similar story because, uh, I was judging, um, a drama contest, uh, out of my town. And I realized when I had gotten there that I had forgotten to bring a book with me and there was going to be a lot of sitting around.

Uh, and so I raced to the grocery store, um, of the town that I was in and, you know, grocery stores have pretty limited selections, but I saw. This, uh, on the shelf, I think it was a best seller and it looked promising. Um, so I picked it up and over the course of that day, just in these little periods of time that I had between different one acts that I was judging, I was reading this book and I got so into it that I found myself like racing through my notes and evaluations so that I could get back to the book and have some time to read it before the next one act.

I kind of couldn’t put it down and I finished it all. That one day, I really liked it. Uh, like you said, it’s not like a literary masterpiece, but it was just really good storytelling. And I was kind of intrigued by the fact that if somebody had explained the premise to me before I started reading it, I would have said that sounds really stupid.

Um,

Todd: That’s what I meant when I said it was a little pulpy, you know,

Craig: but despite what initially appeared to me to be kind of a stupid premise, I actually found it to be a. Entertaining and I wa and suspenseful, and I was kind of on the edge of my seat. Um, and like I said, I couldn’t put it down. I finished it all in that one day.

And then, so I was excited to see the movie to the rights to the movie sold before the book was even published. Um, and, uh, the guy who wrote it, Scott B. Smith, um, was hired on to do the screenplay. And that, in my opinion is usually a really good sign. Well, often a good thing. I guess it depends on who the novelist is.

Um, so I was surprised, uh, when I saw the movie how different it was than the book. I mean, ultimately a lot of the same things happen, but they happen in different sequence, into different characters. And I’m not exactly. They sure why he made the choices that he did not to say that they’re bad. Sure.

Voices just different. I wonder if maybe it had a little bit too do with casting because probably at the time the movie was made and, and maybe even still now probably the biggest name in the movie is Jenna Malone or Maloney. I’m not sure how she says her name. Um, but she was a, a child actor and has been working ever since she was a young girl, but as a woman now she’s appeared in the hungry.

The games series, she played Joanna and the hunger game series at the time. I think that she was the biggest name of all of these four or five central characters. Um, and in, I mean, I’m going to go ahead and get kind of spoiler-y here in the beginning, maybe a little, I guess, but in the book, she’s the first to die and in the movie she’s not, and I wonder.

If maybe it was because of her status that that change was made. I have no idea. That’s purely speculation on my point there on my part. Uh, the point is yes, the book and the movie are different. And I remember too, because the book was so fresh in my mind being a little bit disappointed the first time I saw it.

But after, you know, kind of getting over that and going back and watching it again. And at this point, you know, this movie has been out for a while. I’ve seen it several times. I appreciate the movie, uh, on its own. Uh, I don’t think it’s amazing, but I think it’s pretty good. And there’s, uh, some definitely some good stuff to talk

Todd: about.

Yeah, I agree. And I have to go back and correct. One thing that I had said earlier, uh, this, I guess was Scott Smith’s first, a horror novel. He did do a novel before this, uh, that a movie was based on, he also did the screenplay for that movie as well. A simple plan. With bill Paxton. I think it’s directed by if I’m not mistaken, it’s directed by, uh, either Sam Raimi or the Cohen brothers.

I think it’s Sam Raimi. And that is a fantastic movie. It’s a fantastic story. And it’s really twisty and really, you know, sort of the story of this plan gone awry. And, uh, I would, by the way, highly recommend that I I’d be interested to read the novel now that I have now that I realize that, but he had done that 10 years before this one.

So, uh, this was his first step out the gate in 10 years. Like I said, I don’t really remember that much about the novel, but it does take place. And this is why I think it’s sounds soulful seems so familiar is it’s one of these stories of a bunch of, uh, college age people, um, who are on vacation in a foreign country.

You know, they’re all Americans in a foreign country and, uh, somebody comes along with some idea to go out somewhere and do something unique and special and they go out and being. Kind of stupid and out of their element, they’re, don’t really understand the culture they’re in and the places they’re in and things like that.

They get in way over their heads, which is basically like hostile. It’s like a cannibal Holocaust, you know, it’s like a lot of these movies. Um, but this has its own. Kind of unique twist on it. And I think it’s, although the premise itself is pulpy, by the way, the premise is these killer plants. Right. But not little shop of horror style, it works pretty well.

I think as, uh, as this kind of thriller, it worked well in the book and it did work well in the movie. I think the only thing that I came around away with watching this movie, the second time thinking was. I just thought a lot more stuff happened. Yeah, it’s true. There really wasn’t a lot that happened in the movie.

And I think for a movie about killer plants and these people who are surrounded all at all times by the threat of these killer plants, the plants are not all that threatening, except in certain. Moments. Right. And I have to feel that if I were in the situation that they were in, I would be a lot more freaked out and I would be making much different choices than they do.

Um, especially as it becomes clear to them what’s going on. I don’t know. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking, but in my head anyway, As far as the movie goes. I remember there being a lot more action in the book. I might be wrong. Was there,

Craig: well, I don’t remember that. Well, either because it’s been, you know, over a decade since I’ve read it, but I think that the difference is in a book, you can get a lot more into the nuances of character and relationships.

And I think. I think that that is a lot more, well, I don’t want to say it’s where the focus was because it was still a horror novel and there were still very S you know, scary, gross things happening. But, um, I think it was more character driven, uh, and just, you know, by nature of the medium of film, we don’t get to know the characters as well.

We don’t see. The subtleties of the nuances of their relationships as much. I mean, we see it a little bit. Um, but it’s also a little bit limited and the focus is really more kind of on the visual stuff going on with these plants, uh, which is fine because I think that, you know, the effects in the movie are good and it’s gory and gross, and it makes you squirm, uh, in your seat a lot.

And so it’s successful on that level, I think, but, uh, you’re right in that ultimately, you know, they get where they’re going and then they’re there, you know, and, and then they’re in trouble and that, that’s kinda how it works. But

Todd: I guess for me, the other general thing before we kind of dive into the plot is that I don’t think there was any problem necessarily with the character development in this movie.

I just. I don’t think I really fell in love with anybody. You know, I don’t think I ever was like, Oh, that’s an interesting guy. Or, Oh, that girl, you know, she, I really hope she lives or, well, he’s a jerk or whatever, and maybe. That’s not a negative, depending on how you view it, because the characters seem authentic.

They just seem like a, we dropped in on a bunch of college kids. So we don’t know a whole heck of a lot about, and we’re not with them for very long, um, before they get into the situation and then the situation happens and they got to deal with the situation. They’re not. You know, which is sometimes a fault of other movies jumping into high drama between each other really.

Right. There’s a little bit of some tension between some of the characters, but I would like to think anyway, that if I’m in a bad, horrible kind of emergency type situation, that I’m not going to. You know, go off for half a day and sulk because I’m a little more concerned about my boy, my girlfriend’s relationship, you know, flirting with somebody.

Yeah. You know what I mean?

Craig: Well, yeah. I mean, that’s even address directly, you know, at one point. So there’s these four young people, like you said, Jeff is a med student. I mean, they’re young, they’re in their early twenties. He’s a med student, his girlfriend, Amy played by Jenna Malone and then her best friend, Stacy.

By Laura Ramsey and Stacey’s boyfriend, Eric played by Shawn Ashmore and I, Jeff has played by Jonathan Tucker. If I didn’t mention that before these four people all together. And there’s one point when there’s an accusation or a misunderstand. Standing where they think that Amy has been flirting with or getting physical with Eric, who is her best friend’s boyfriend, not her own boyfriend.

And so when Amy is talking to her boyfriend about it and she says, you know, it’s not true. It didn’t happen. He basically says, listen, if the roles were reversed, would you even care? And I took that to mean, like, what difference does it really make it this time? Like bigger things to worry about. Yeah. The thing, you know, you said you didn’t particularly care about any of them.

Um, I mean, I kind of did.

Todd: I mean, I felt so distant from them. I guess. I just, um, there wasn’t any one particular character or two that I really latched on to, or that I. It felt like that I knew really well, you

Craig: know? Yeah, no, I understand what you mean. Uh, and, and I agree with you. That’s why I say like in the book there were, there was more character, but that doesn’t necessarily even mean that the characters were more likable.

Like for example, here, the movie really kind of presents Amy as the main character. I don’t remember that being the case in the book, it was very much just ensemble. They were a group. Um, and we were with all of them all the time. So it wasn’t, you know, a central character kind of thing here. They kind of presented.

Amy is the main character. And there are moments where she makes some choices and decisions that, you know, aren’t very, she doesn’t come across as very likable. I remember in the book that she was very unlikable, she was really selfish. Really careless with other people’s feelings and safety. That was something that I thought was kind of missing from the movie.

But again, they’re just two separate entities. The movie starts out, you know, like you said, like all these movies, like Theresa has all these movies where it’s these young people on vacation and they’re in Mexico, I’m at a resort and they’re just hanging out, doing, you know, young people’s stuff, drinking, hanging out by the pool and they meet this German.

One guy named Mathias and kind of invite him into the group. Uh, and he says that the following day, he, and some of his friends that he’s met there, these Greek guys are going to be going to visit his brother Mathias, his brother at an archeological dig. She’s an archeologist, you vent for a soda or a dig site.

And where did they take it? Can excavation Owens a sink, a main temporary kind of like the ones that nobody here wanted to go to the entire time that we’ve been here. Hmm. It’s not even, it’s a guidebooks VIP only. Yeah. See Jeff. That’s something I would do. Oh yeah. Sounds like fun, but if you’re interested, I’m going to say tomorrow Highness was supposed to be back by now, but, uh, he must be having a good time.

Huh? Ultimately they decide to go. But before that there’s still one night. And again, you kind of, uh, get a little bit of insight into Amy’s character and she drinks too much. Her boyfriend, Jeff goes to bed and she immediately is all over Mathias. And apparently this is not out of character for her.

Because her friends, Stacy and Stacey’s boyfriend, Eric, they’re taking bets on how long it’s going to take her to, or whether or not she will try to kiss Mathias, which she eventually does. And they have to kind of get her away and, and send her off to bed and stuff. And then the next morning they all get up.

Amy initially is very hung over and doesn’t want to go, but Jeff talks her into going and they all go. They take a bus to this small village and then in the small village, they. They catch a taxi, which is just a pickup truck with taxi painted on it. Yeah. And like, in all of these movies, you know, there are warnings, uh, don’t pull up to the creepy gas station and get a warning, but, um, they ask the, they have a map.

And in fact, uh, the Greek guys were all passed out drunk. And so the Greek guys didn’t come, but they left them a copy of the maps. They can join them later, but they showed the taxi driver, this map and the taxi drivers like, Oh no, no, no, no, you don’t want to go there. That’s not a good place. I’ll, I’ll take you to a better place, but they give him money.

And so he says, all right, I’ll take you any, drives them way out into the country and drops them off, uh, at what appears to be like a drop-off point. Cause there are other cars there, uh, and he leaves, but he gives them his cell phone number so that they can call when they’re done. They’re initially a little bit nervous about that, but Matea says no, it’s no big deal.

I have a satellite. Phone, I can get reception anywhere. So they go trekking through the woods. I, I I’m, I’m trying to quit. We get there, but I keep thinking of all of these, you know, again, like they, they have to Trek through the woods. They’re supposed to be able to find this path, but they can’t initially find it.

They see these two young mind children watching them kind of ominously from a dif distance. And while most of them are distracted. Did buy those kids. Mathias is kind of looking around and he finds the path, but it appears that the path has been intentionally covered. Amy, I think is like, why would that be, why would they cover it up?

And somebody else says, well, maybe the archeologists don’t want, you know, a bunch of civilians hanging around or whatever. And Amy is. Nervous about it, but, um, they decided to proceed in there anyway. And when they do one of the little kids, the little boy turns around and hightails it further into the forest.

They finally arrive. At these ruins. Now in the book, even though the book is called the ruins, there really were no ruins. It was just a big Hill, but here it’s like a temple that is pretty big. And it’s covered in these vines and they’re standing there and they’re like taking some pictures and things and they see, they can see kind of the flap of a tent at the top.

So they figure they’re at the right place. When all of a sudden from out of the forest come all of these Mayan men on horseback yelling and screaming at them and waving around guns and other weapons. Um, and of course, They’re frightened. And that is when they get themselves into trouble, I guess, for lack of a better

Todd: description.

Yeah. They, they don’t really know what to do. And, and they’re Spanish. One of them, I think, is a, Jeff can speak a little bit of Spanish, but it’s not really working. And these guys, you know, their kid can’t communicate, but they’re definitely yelling at them. Um, and they have guns out. Amy, uh, ends up back she’s she’s the photographer.

And so she’s snapping pictures and like don’t snap pictures of these guys. She ends up backing into the foot, basically of this temple, which is covered in vines, like you said, and she ends up stepping into the vines. This we later learned if it’s not immediately obvious to you when you’re watching the movie is what sets these people off.

And so they start screaming and yelling and threatening them more and basically forced them up to the top.

Craig: They know they’re in, you know, serious danger because one of the Greek. The guys did come with them. And when the Mayans saw Amy step into the vines, they freak out and the Greek guy tries to approach them to calm things down and he’s, they shoot him.

They shoot him through the chest with an arrow, and then they blow his head off.

Todd: Yeah, that’s right. These

Craig: kids know that, you know, these people mean business. So when they order them up, the temple, they go, they don’t, they don’t have any choice.

Todd: That’s true. Yeah. I forgot about that bit. They go up the temple to the top and there is this camp set up, you know, there’s the tent and everything.

Um, but Mathias is looking for his brother and can immediately find him. There is a hole at the top that with a structure over it, just a little frame and, uh, Rope that can be lowered down into it. So it’s clear that they were on this expedition and I can’t remember if it’s at this point, the Mateus comes across the body or not.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s right away. Yeah. Right away. He comes yeah. Across the body of his brother. I think it is. And they noticed at the top of the. Hill that they are unable to get their cell reception. We get to take care of this. Like you said, last week, wherever we got to take care of this early on, nobody has cell reception.

Um, and Mathias. Unfortunately the one who had the phone with it had been showing it to the Mayans to try to communicate with them. And they took the phone from him. So they had it at the bottom, so they don’t have cell phones, but they start hearing a cell phone ringing. Uh, from this pit. And so they decided to descend into this pit and see what’s down there.

And if the rest of the group is down there and at least find his phone, and I think this is pretty true to the, to the novel as well. Isn’t it at this point? Yeah. And Mathias gets lowered down, but as he’s being lowered, uh, the girls notice that the rope is starting to fray. Now if you and I were in the situation, we would probably hurry up and continue lowering the rope instead of reversing course and trying to pull it up again.

Right. Which was a really bad move on their part, uh, because the rope does indeed break and Mateus falls pretty far down, uh, into this. Thing. And so now, um, somebody’s got to go in after him and that somebody ends up being Stacy. I don’t know. She was the most equipped to really go down and take care of this guy, but they put her, you know, they make sure that the rope is all secure and solid stuff again, and they create craft a makeshift backed board out of backpack.

Things and stuff that they have lying around so that they can get Mathias raised out of this pit. Well,

Craig: yeah, they do eventually, but first when Stacy goes down, um, they lower her down and she gets to a point where she can see him at the bottom and they know he’s alive. Uh, they can hear him, but when she, she gets to a certain point, I would say she’s probably 10, 12 feet in the air.

They’re out of rope and they can’t lower any further. And I think it happened this way in the book too, but I don’t remember, but it really doesn’t make any sense to me because what they say is we’re out of rope. Can you jump now that doesn’t make any sense to me because then how are they going to get her out if she does, if she jumps down there and they don’t have any more rope, how are they going to get her out?

But I guess somehow they find more rope somewhere, but first she jumps down there and she’s okay. Except for when Mathias had fallen, he had had, um, a lantern and of course the lantern had shattered and, uh, she falls on some of that debris and cuts her knee. Badly. And so she’s injured too. And she finds her, you know, she says that, um, what’s his name?

Mathias is okay, but he can’t move. And she says, it smells like feces. It’s not what she says, but that’s what, and so it becomes obvious that, uh, he has broken his spine, which is why he’s lost control of his bowels. And, um, so they know he’s in trouble. So then they also have to. To send Amy down, they build that back board and they send Amy down.

Once again, they can’t get it quite all the way down to the bottom. So Amy and Stacy have to lift Mathias onto this back board, which everybody knows is a terrible idea. Um, you never lift somebody with a back injury, especially a spinal injury, but I suppose also what choice do they have? It’s either lift them or leave it.

I’m down there. So they lift him onto the back board and they do get him back up and they get back up. Gosh, I don’t even remember how things start to go bad.

Todd: There’s some little worse. Yeah, there’s some little Easter egg things. Like if you’re really paying attention that are showing you that things are a little sinister or something’s not quite right as they’re being lowered down or being pulled back up.

If you look closely in the background as they’re going down this channel or whatever that is lined with these vines. Uh, you can notice that the vines are shivering a little bit, almost like a little, little tendrils are kind of reaching, not just very subtly, you know, sort of reaching out to them. It could be mistaken for the wind.

And then they do hear that cell phone ringing. Uh, but they have to come back, uh, and, and try to figure out the cell phone. But because he’s injured, Amy runs down to she’s like we got to get help from these Mayans. Like they got to, you know, they’re the only people around here who can help us in some way.

Um, so she runs down the temple and is it the base and is kind of trying to get their attention. It’s kind of, there’s kind of a shouting match. And in her frustration, she grabs tears a piece of the vine off and throws it at them and ends up hitting one of the kids. Who was there, like these Mayans have basically set up camp down there.

Now it’s like, these people are here, we got to keep them on the temple. Uh, which is, you know, which is what they’re supposed to be doing. And so like their whole families have come out and they’ve set up camp all around there. And so this kid, this. His touched the kid. Uh, and suddenly they go a little crazy and they’re arguing and fighting and the kid’s crying and he’s like raising his hands and they shoot this, this boy, this little boy, which is always a troubling thing, uh, in a movie.

And, uh, you know, we always, we talk about this often when a horror movie goes there, you know, when it’s willing to put kids in parallel and show kids, and this is no bones about it. They blast this kid just as graphically as, uh, we saw the Greek kid get blasted earlier. So, um, yeah. Um, I thought that was interesting that the movie was willing to go there, but that tells them a, you know, they really are in over their heads.

They don’t know what’s going on, but B. Maybe it has something to do with this plant or these plants. I can’t remember if they exactly are putting that piece, those pieces together quite yet, but

Craig: they do. And I pretty like, you know, that because the kid had been touched by the vines and then they killed these Mayans killed one of their own and not only one of their own, but a child.

Um, I think that they put it together and then when they go back up, somebody notices that their clothes are covered in resonance. Do I guess, um, from these plants. Yeah. Yeah. It’s kind of what it looks like. I guess like pollen from these plants that are, it’s all over their clothes, it’s in their hair. Um, it’s on their skin and so they know something’s wrong throughout this.

They’re also having conversations about conserving water and Geoff remaining optimistic Demetrius play tickets. How does that help us? Oh, he was supposed to leave tomorrow morning on a seven Oh five flight. So when he doesn’t show up tomorrow, his friends are definitely going to know that something’s wrong.

How will they know where we are? They have a map to meet you a copy of the map for him. So there’ll be here tomorrow. We just have to make it through the night. He even, it says at one point, a bunch of white kids don’t go missing in Mexico and nobody does anything about it. Like he’s just confident that, uh, somehow they will be found.

They also know that those other Greek guys were supposed to be meeting them there. So they also kind of hope that maybe those guys will show up. I don’t know what they think would happen. And if those guys did show up, because those Mayans are down there with their guns and you know, but Jeff tries to keep everybody optimistic.

They, uh, they go to sleep, um, for a night. And when they wake up in the morning, Stacey’s legs are bothering her. So she pulls the blanket off of her legs and sees that her leg. Eggs are wrapped in these vines and that the vines in fact are going into growing into the wound in her knee. Oh, it’s so gross.

It is gross. Like in my notes, in my notes, I have. Stacy’s legs, exclamation point, but they, they pull, you know, the vines out. Uh, and I would assume that they noticed, because we can certainly see it, the vines move, like they’re almost like snake, like in their movement, but they pull them all out. And while they’re still kind of reeling from that Mathias calls Amy over and says, there’s something wrong, show me my legs.

And so she pulls the blanket off of his legs. And his legs have been from the knee down almost just entirely eaten down to the bone. Oh, by these fines, it is the movie’s gory. And, uh, and it does not shy away from showing you stuff. And it, you know, I can kind of take Gore or leave it. I don’t need it. It doesn’t bother me usually that much, but, um, the effects here are, are good.

Uh, it looks real and it really, I mean, I don’t know about you, but like I was squirming, you know, it’s, it’s you see those vines, you know, going into her wound and, and wrapped around and moving around his disintegrated legs and it, it just gives you the heebie-jeebies.

Todd: Yeah. I’m not sure if, uh, if I have squirmed so much in a horror movie since.

Like the first time I saw one of the soft films, you know, where, where we’re just getting really up close and personal with splintering bones and things like that. And this movie you’re right. It doesn’t pull any punches in that regard. And you know, that’s a good thing, I guess it does most of the horror, but here is the point at which, all right, so we’re halfway through the movie now and now there’s this problem.

So. They all realize that there’s something funky going on with these plants and the girls. They, they hear itself, the cell phone ringing again, and they realize that they still have that cell phone down there that they could probably get a deal with. So the two girls decide to descend down into the pit and there they are inside this big chamber with their lights.

And they hear the ringing and it’s coming from like a passageway, which is almost completely overgrown with these vines. I mean, there’s vines on the floor, on the walls, the ceiling, it’s like a tunnel of vines. So this is the point at which I’m thinking. I mean, of course we’re thinking like, no, you guys are crazy.

I’m thinking. Wouldn’t you be doing something about this that they didn’t seem to be displaying to me, appropriate amount of, um, freak out redness about walking through pushing away vines. The, that are basically these passageways, just big enough, basically for them to fit through. And then into this little chamber, which is, once again, you can’t even see the walls or the ceiling or the floor.

It’s all thick vines. And there’s a guy in there, uh, that they find his corpse and his phone and they get the phone, but the phone is broken and they start hearing the ringing still, but it’s not coming from the phone. Amy looks over and sees the, Oh, and this is such a great visual. Actually they, these, these vines have little red buds on them, little red flowers and the little statements inside that flower.

Are vibrating. The flowers themselves are making that cell phone sound and it’s all around them. Now, all of a sudden, just the plant is almost mocking them. And then they start to Hightail it out of there. And I don’t know, it’s different when you’re reading a novel, right? Cause you can imagine anything, but when you see the visual of this and these girls surrounded by this plant that is mocking them.

How they managed to get out of there. The only explanation I have is that the plan itself wanted to play with these people before it ate them. I don’t know. It just, didn’t it just defied logic and sense to me, you know? Well,

Craig: yeah, I know it does. Uh, And, and like when they finally realized that it’s as though the plant knows, they know now.

And so it becomes, it becomes aggressive and it like starts grabbing at them and trying to pull them in. And, uh, at one they, they, they run back, you know, to their rope, but along the way, Stacey, the, you know, the vines trip her up intentionally and wrap around her leg and start pulling her back in and. Amy has to, you know, go back and pull her out and they do get, you know, back onto the rope and, and, uh, they’re screaming and the guys pulled them up and the vines are kind of moving all around them, but, uh, they do get up you’re right.

It does seem like, well, You know, if the vines could have gotten them, it would have been down there where they were completely sorted rounded. And that’s why I said, if you had told me the premise of the book, I would’ve thought it was dumb because you know, it’s killer plants. First of all, that just doesn’t in my mind sound particularly scary.

It just sounds. Silly. It goes beyond that because not only because there are killer plants, I mean, there are plants that will kill you, right? Not in this kind of aggressive fashion, but you know, I get it. Nature can be dangerous. Fine. So the idea of the killer vines. But then there’s also this thing that they can imitate sound and they can imitate the phone.

And again, it’s not like in the world of nature that this is impossible. There are animals that can perfectly mimic sound, but in the book, as silly as it sounds like this plant, whatever it is. Seems to be entirely scenting it in that it can move. And yeah, there’s one part coming up. I don’t remember where it is.

It’s coming up soon. They get them back up. Eric wants to make a run for it. Jeff says they can’t, there’s no way they’ll get past the Mayans. Stacy starts getting paranoid is not the right word. She can feel the vines under her skin. And in fact, the point comes where you. You can see them. They are, they’re like at first you kind of think maybe she’s just paranoid and justifiably, so, but eventually you can see that in fact, yes, they are moving around under her

Todd: and, and she’s kind of breaking down here anyway because, uh, you know, she, I think it’s like the next morning or something after they have this encounter, she goes an awful lot accusatory and says that she heard Eric.

Having sex with Amy. And they’re like, what are you talking about? And she’s like, I heard you guys last night, don’t deny it. And then, uh, the sounds of her and her freak out, start getting echoed back at her. And it turns out that the plant, which is surrounding them, even at the top of this ruins, this plant is surrounding them the entire time.

Yeah. And so that this is, again, this kind of. Saying like everything pretty much gets proven to them. Uh, you know, she’s woken up with a plan inside of her. The guys had legs were getting eaten off by the plant. They watched the vines, you know, try to pull him away. And they had to, you know, to keep, to, to pull them back.

The girls went down there, they had that experience. They had the experience of the cell phone. They had this experience. It’s like, all right, you guys are surrounded by this plant. All times, I don’t know what I would do in that situation, but I’m pretty sure I would never turn my back on it. Right. You know?

So this is the point where the movie kind of like, um, I just like, there’s just a discord. There’s a disconnect that I’m having a hard time. Time wrapping my mind around it’s bothers me. I get what

Craig: you’re saying, but there’s really not anything they can do. They can’t leave. Uh, and, and there’s no, you know, how do you fight a plant?

You know, like you start, you start. Picking all the flowers, like, I, I don’t know what they would do, but what you said about the plants mimicking her speech. That’s what I was trying to get to because, um, it sounds so ludicrous, but in the book, as ludicrous, as it may have sounded. And not only can it mimic voice, but like, it can talk, it’s like a, a McCall, you know, or, or something that can perfectly imitate sounds.

It seems like it should be silly. But in the book, I remember it actually being pretty frightening and it still works. Okay. Here. Like, like you said, I think it works better in your imagination, right? Because to actually see. I see it maybe takes a little bit of something away from it. It still works. It’s fine.

Um, we, we skipped the part, uh, uh, Jeff, this 22 year old med student makes the decision that they’re going to have to amputate Mathias his legs because. Otherwise they’re going to get infected. Um, but not to worry because he has a spinal injury, so he won’t be able to feel anything. Um, and then they do this whole amputation scene and it’s horrible because all they have is like, A small hunting knife, like a pocket knife.

Um, and then he breaks the bones with this large rock with kind of a, not a sharp edge, but at least, um, an edge to it. And, you know, they, it shows it in pretty graphic detailed. The worst part of it is that Jeff clearly didn’t know what he was talking about because Mathias obviously can feel it. Because he’s screaming in agony through this whole thing.

And we not only do we see both the legs get chopped off, but then Jeff uses like a frying pan. That’s been in the fire to cauterize the ends of the legs, which we also see. And it’s just, I mean, it’s brutal while this movie, you know, there are scenes that take place at night. Most of it is in broad.

Daylight, right. Bright daylight. Uh, and, and the, the movie was filmed using natural light. Uh, and so everything is very bright and clear. And so you see everything and as things start to get progressively grocer, uh, I mean, there’s just no holding back. The next thing that happened. It really is, is Stacy can feel these vines moving around underneath her and it’s come to the point where they can see them.

So Jeff, uh, using that same knife cuts into her skin and starts pulling them out and they’re riving and trying to stay in and trying to avoid the knife, these vines. But, uh, he, he gets them out, but it is disgusting. I mean, we see him. Sticking the knife in. And, you know, I don’t know how they did this effect, but it looks real and he sticks it a good inch and a half, two inches into her and is digging around and the blood is just pouring out and he’s digging his fingers in these wounds.

Ugh. It makes me shiver. Talking about it, but they, they do get them out. They think they do, but then they’re all sitting around and Amy looks at Stacy and she sees, and we see the vines moving around in her forehead and Stacy can feel it. And she believes that they saw it. But they’re just trying to keep her calm, but she wants to cut more.

Uh, and they say, you can’t, we can’t cut more. And that, that appears to be true because this girl is bleeding like crazy. If they kept doing this, she would surely die, but, uh, they wake up. The next morning. Unfortunately, Stacy wakes up first and the plants kind of taught her the night before she had been saying, I want to cut it.

I want to cut it. So the plants start chanting that and her voice. Got it. Got it.

So when Eric gets up in the morning, he gets out of the tent and we just see Stacy from behind from kind of a distance she’s standing, but her head is lowered. And you can tell, even from behind what’s happening, uh, you can see some blood on her side and on her legs, but when she turns around, she has just carved herself to ribbons.

Uh, I mean, she’s basically flayed one of her legs

Todd: that was really gross. Uh, I forgot

Craig: about the whole thing and she’s continuing to cut. Um, and they’re telling her to stop and she’s saying, no, it’s okay. I just have to get this one more. And she’s digging and Jeff approaches her. And as though she thinks he’s going to try to take the knife from her, she swings around with the knife and slices, his hand, he and Amy, Jeff and Amy tried to tend to that wound.

And Eric, her boyfriend approaches her and she swings around and you know, she’s, there’s no other thing to say then basically she’s kind of crazy at this point, you know, she doesn’t do this intentionally or out of malice. But I think just out of survival instinct or whatever it is, she turns around and she plunges the knife right into either his heart or his lungs, but to the hilt.

Todd: Yeah. She’s a strong gal.

Craig: Yeah. To get all the way through the breast plate and everything. Right. And he goes down and this, you know, like you said, it’s not as though we’re particularly connected to any of these characters, but this part was heartbreaking. You know, she realizes what she’s done and she’s horrified and, and she’s sobbing.

As, as she lays next to her boyfriend who is, you know, dying, you know, just gasping for air. And, uh, eventually he does die and the vines immediately grab him by the legs and start pulling him away. And she is. Is sobbing sobbing, and she eventually just starts begging, begging Amy to kill her. And Amy saying I can’t, I can’t the vines pull Eric away.

Jeff smartly pulls the knife out of his chest before they pull him away entirely. And then it. Cuts away to a shot of the Mayans standing and looking up the Hill and you hear Stacey’s screams and then they stop. Yeah. Do you, do you think they killed? Yeah, I do.

Todd: I think Jeff killed her. Yeah. It’s. Yeah, it’s crazy.

And it was shocking to me, but you know, she’s begging for it and she’s bleeding probably half bled to death.

Craig: Oh yeah. She would have died anyway,

Todd: being the med school student and sort of the more stoic, I mean, he was. He did, uh, I mean, as, as messy as those amputations were, he did a pretty good job of maintaining his cool through that as well as carving into her and pulling the things out.

So, I mean, I, it made sense to me that he could do that if he decided that that was medically appropriate

Craig: would have been the merciful thing to do. I mean, she would have died anyway and she had to have been in just excruciating pain plus the misery of knowing what she had just done. So it w. I agree with you.

I think they did. I think that Jeff probably killed her, but, um, either way she’s dead and that leads up to the end, which is very, very different than the way that the book ended. But I like the ending as it plays out. And, and there are actually a couple of diff a couple of alternate endings that we can talk about, but the way, you know, the theatrical release ending, um, I think it’s pretty good.

Todd: Did we see the theater? We saw the, one of the alternate endings didn’t we did. We, I’m not sure. I read in IMD B uh, something about the ending. And it said that there’s an alternate ending. Oh, it says. This is just an alternate ending on the DVD feature, shows Amy driving away. When she looks in the rear view mirror, it shows a small vine moving under her skin just below her eye.

And we saw that, right. We saw that. So that must be, we must have seen the alternate ending. I don’t remember what the difference was.

Craig: Gosh, I’m confused. And I would have to look it up too, because all right. So anyway, what happens is Jeff makes a plan and there are a lot of deleted scenes. Not a lot, like three or four, you can find them all on YouTube.

They’re all on. I guess the Blu-ray, uh, in a deleted scene, you actually see them talking about the plan. You don’t see so much of that here. You just, he smears her with blood, um, which they have plenty of at this point and, and mud. And then the next thing we see is the Mayans standing down, by the way, at some point we didn’t talk about it, but they figure it out.

They figure out that the vines, the Mayans are keeping these vines isolated. They’re there, they’ve salted the earth all around this Hill. And that’s why they’re forcing. Them to stay up there because if they were to come out, they would bring the vines with them. So, uh, we see the Mayans down at the bottom and Jeff starts coming down the Hill and he’s holding Amy, who is presumably dead.

I mean, she looks dead, she’s limp in his arms and he lays her down on the ground, uh, at the foot of the Hill. And then he starts talking to them and he says, my name’s Jeff. Um, I’m 23 years old or whatever. I was going to be a doctor that was my dream. And the whole time that he’s doing this, he’s very slowly walking away from her and everybody, all of the Mayans who are.

Still down there are following him and moving away from her and leaving her untended or unattended, excuse me. And eventually he gets far enough away that he kind of stops and he says, and she was my girlfriend and she had hopes and dreams or something too. Uh, and you’re going to know her name. Her name was Amy and he screams.

Her name. And as soon as he shouts her name, she jumps up and bolts through the forest. So this was their, their plan is for her to escape and come back for him. But, uh, there’s not going to be anything to come back. Two because the central Mayan guy, um, shoots, uh, Jeff, they, they, they shoot him with several arrows and then eventually, uh, the guy shoots him in the head too.

No, at all. All of the other Mayans are chasing Amy through the. Forest in my mind, what I’m thinking at this point is what’s the point, like she’s already contaminated. The forest,

Todd: like is screwed

Craig: up. She just brought on the apocalypse. Uh, but they’re, they’re trying to, they’re, they’re chasing or they’re shooting at, or, you know, bullets are ricocheting all around her.

Uh, arrows are hitting trees around her, but she gets back to, it’s not even their car that she takes. It’s one of the archeologists car, I guess they found the key there or something. And at the very last second, she. Gets the car started and she drives away and she’s getting away. And the camera close does a very intense, close up on her eyes.

And we see vines moving underneath her skin. Like you said, I read an IMD B to that. That was an alternate ending. If that’s true. I don’t remember how it originally ended. The only thing that I can think is that maybe we didn’t, maybe we just saw her get away and we didn’t see the vines moving under her skin.

Todd: Yeah. I th that could be it because then there’s a, yet another scene after that, where the Greeks, I guess, who had fallen asleep or were passed out the day before, have made it back through and they. Are on the path and they come up to the ruins. And so that’s kind of that little zinger there at the end that this is about to happen all over again with a fresh new batch of people,

Craig: uh, right.

The book ended very differently. Uh, first of all, we, we failed to mention that Mathias died. You know, we keep talking about these killer vines. They really only kill one person. Uh, the vines only kill Mathias. And the way that they kill him is that they. While others are distracted, the vines, attack him and go down into his throat, uh, and suffocate him, um, in the book, Amy and Jeff get in a fight and this happens at night and the vines do that to Amy and Jeff is standing there watching it happen, but it’s dark.

And so he doesn’t know, he thinks that she’s just being petulant and not talking to him. But in fact, she’s being killed right in front of his face. Um, And in the book, Amy is the first to go. Uh, the last man standing or woman standing in the book is Stacy. And she, uh, at the end makes a sign like a BeAware or like a skull and crossbones.

I don’t remember, but she makes a sign and she puts it down at the base of the, uh, temple or, or the Hill. And then she kills herself as a warning to anybody else who will come. However, the vines pull her body and the sign away so that her warning is, is for not. Um, so the, the book is even more grimly than the movie.

Um, there was one other. Uh, alternate or additional scene that you can find on YouTube, uh, where we are in a cemetery and there’s a funeral going on, but our attention is diverted away from the funeral to a groundskeeper, uh, who is whistling. But when he stops whistling, he continues to hear the whistling and he follows it and it leads him to a headstone that says Amy, on it, on which these vines with these red flowers are.

Growing as though, you know, she has brought them out. She’s died, however she died, but she brought them out into the world. That’s awesome. Yeah. I liked that. I liked that ending, you know, I think it’s fine as the deleted scene. You know, it’s, it’s unnecessary, but I kind of like the implication of the vines, you know, having been brought out and we get to see that more than just seeing it under her skin in the car.

Yeah. I mean, overall, I think if you’re a fan, a fan of Gore effects, I think that you’re going to be really pleased by this movie. Uh, and just overall it’s, it’s kind of one of those ones. Year, did this come out 2008? You know, in that, that time period between 2000, 2010, maybe a little bit later, there was this horror, the style of horror movies changed a little bit.

They became a little bit less gritty. What am I trying to say here? Like everything here is in bright daylight. It’s very direct. Everything looks very, not clean as in the people look clean, but like the shots all look very clear and clean. Um, it’s not kind of that dark gritty stuff that we were used to in the eighties and nineties, there were more or less.

Todd: Shot as, as you would shoot, just like a teen drama or a romantic comedy or something like that in the cinematography, right. Or in the settings. Right. It’s very, I think the idea of course, was to make it more real to people and to show you, you know, you don’t need dark lights and nightmares to, to get horror.

You know, you, you can encounter the stuff in the middle of the day when you’re out with your friends, partying and spring break.

Craig: Right. Yeah. And so it’s got kind of that feel to it, but I, you know, I think it’s very competently made the acting is I have no complaints. I thought all of the performers were good.

Um, I found. The guy who played Eric particularly charming and stay Stacey too. You know, Jeff and Amy were kind of the central couple. They were kind of boring to me. I liked Stacy and Eric better. I’d rather hang out with. Um, but, uh, you know, while I do it, I don’t think that it’s an amazing movie. Um, it’s got a 5.8 out of 10 stars on IMDP.

I didn’t check the rotten tomato score. I think it’s good. I think it’s a good movie. And, and one that horror fans will enjoy it. Now, somebody like that. Your wife should never touch this with a 10 foot pole.

Todd: Truly not. It’s just way too gory way too gory. And I’ve got to, I’ve got to admit to, um, it’s, there’s nothing really wrong with this movie at all. It’s pretty satisfying in a lot of different ways. Even what I said earlier about it’s really a little hard to fathom that they can be surrounded by these plants, but the plants don’t end up posing such a danger to them as you would expect.

And they don’t end up, I think still kind of like reacting and acting the way that I would, if I was surrounded by what I thought was a killer plant, it can kind of be explained away. I mean, you can, it can be explained about by what you don’t know. Like, well, maybe the plants really aren’t actually that.

Capable, maybe they are biding their time and toying and playing with them. You don’t know enough about this plant. And that’s another interesting thing about this movie. You don’t know about the origins of the plant. You don’t know about these ruins or what there’s, there’s no attempt at all to say, Oh, this is like part of an ancient Mayan, you know, curse, or, you know, they don’t find hieroglyphics inside that, you know, foretell this.

And there’s none of that, which. Adds to the horror of the situation and conveniently covers those potentially loose threads. Right. So in some ways people might see it as a cop out in other ways. Well, this is just kind of how life is sometimes. Right? Right. Well, we just don’t know. So I, I can, I can even say that, that didn’t ultimately bother me, uh, like that sort of believability issue often bothers me in another movie because it may very well not have been a believability issue.

You

Craig: just don’t know. No, in this case, I prefer that they don’t try to explain it. You know, I felt like it would’ve been cheap if they had, I

Todd: think it would have been. Cheesier poppier. You’re right. You’re right.

Craig: We don’t need to know why or how it just, this is what it is and it’s scary and we deal with it.

I mean, or don’t deal with it. I mean, again, what can they do? But anyway, yeah, I would recommend the book over the movie. I enjoyed the book more. Yeah. Um, but maybe I would have enjoyed the movie more. Had I not read the book first and had I not read the book so soon before I saw the movie, I mean, I saw the movie like right away, right after the book.

So, um, maybe if it hadn’t been as fresh in my mind, uh, I would have appreciated the movie more. Or maybe if I hadn’t read the book at all, I would have appreciated the movie more, but I really did enjoy the book. And, um, the movie for what it is I think is, is perfectly fine.

Todd: There’s a lesson in here for all of us folks.

And don’t break warranty.

Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. You can find us online just by Googling to guys and the chainsaw. You’ll find us on Facebook, Twitter, and you’ll find our YouTube channel like us. I subscribed to us in those places and send us a message.

Let us know what requests you have, and we’ll do our best to get to them until next time. I’m Todd and I’m Craig with two guys and a chainsaw.

It’s not a masterpiece of cinema, but there’s a certain scrappy charm behind this early DIY slasher made by some college students at UCLA. You also get the screen debut of Daphne Zuniga of “Spaceballs” fame, one of Hollywood’s most prolific makeup designers AND one of its most prolific film composers. So as always, we try to appreciate it for what it is, without shying away from laughing at its ineptitude.

The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1982)

Episode 214, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Todd: Continuing with our request this week, we often get requests that come down the pipe that were movies that we had earmarked. Like, ah, that would be interesting to do something we read about online. And then later on somebody suggests it and we go, Oh, well that gives us an extra excuse to get to that a little earlier.

And that is the case with this movie, The Dorm That Dripped Blood from 1982, graciously requested by Freddy or one of our long time listeners. So thank you Freddy for this request. I’m really looking forward to talking about this one. This is one of those movies that I had seen on the shelf. Never got a, but it has this, you know, delicious title, the dorm that dripped blood.

And I think over the years I’ve been confusing this with another movie called The House That Dripped Blood, which was another title that, uh, had always screamed to me from the shelves. And one of those Halloweens when I went and watched a whole bunch of movies, I made sure to see that. And that’s like a British Amicus movie that’s kind of along the lines of a whore, a hammer horror movie.

Uh, and it is a, an anthology film. And actually it’s pretty good. I think we should watch it sometime. This is definitely not that movie. This is a movie that was shot in and on and around the UCLA campus by a bunch of film students. And back in the day when you could shoot a movie on 16 millimeter, and uh, as long as it was a slasher horror movie, you could probably get it sold and distributed.

That’s exactly what happened to this movie. So for better, for worse, this is the movie that we have. And I think it’s worth talking about. Oh, there’s some notorious things about it. And you can see the whole thing on YouTube, which is where we, uh, picked it up. You can rent it. Also. In fact, there’s an unrated director’s cut.

There’s a director’s cut out there as a BluRay transfer. Uh, we watched, I think, the original release in very, very. Dim and grainy video on YouTube for free. Yup. So anyway, I had never, I had never seen this movie before. How about you, Craig?

Craig: Nope, I’d never even heard of it. I guess, you know, that drifts blood.

You know, I, I guess I’d heard that before this movie went. Through several titles, I guess, before it landed on this. And I guess that it landed on the dorm, that drift blood to try to kind of capitalize on the name recognition of The House That Dripped Blood, even though they have really nothing to do with one another.

Um, other than, you know, presumably both being horror films. But no, I, I had never heard of it. I don’t remember having read anything about it or anything, which is fairly rare cause I kinda try to keep up on those things. But, um, yeah, this was totally new for me.

Todd: I was really excited. See this. I’m clearly the one that put it on the list.

So it’s another one of those cases where the box art and the poster art have almost nothing to do with the actual movie. The dorm on there looks like this old Gothic like dorms you might find on the campus of Boston or something, but the dorm here is a very modern looking almost really. Crappy rundown.

I couldn’t believe, actually as I was watching this movie, one of the things that was running through my mind is just how dingy and dirty and crappy this entire building is. Like. I can’t believe people live in this place, let alone, but I guess the premise of the movie. Is that during the break a bunch of people are going home and another group of students who live there are staying back and they’re helping to clear out this dorm.

It’s going to be demolished or something like that. So

Craig: they’re turning it into an apartment complex, but they have to get all of the old furniture out and get it cleaned up and all that kind of stuff.

Todd: Cause I thought that the police at the end of the movie made a comment that made it sound like the place was going to get demolished.

Craig: Oh, they did. Well, maybe make that, you’re right. Maybe they were going to build a car, I don’t know,

Todd: demolished us. Extremely shitty building. And uh,

I think it was filmed not at a dorm in UCLA, but some of it was the UCLA film school building and other parts of it, UCLA co-op building or whatever. They even make some mention in there about it being a co-op when they’re doing some cleaning early on. We funny thing about it is. For what these people are supposed to be doing.

They do precious little of it throughout the whole movie, right? They don’t spend, they spend all, but maybe two scenes in the beginning of the movie moving furniture and stuff around, and the rest of the time they’re just hanging out, playing pool and getting murdered. So

I was, I was really looking forward to some serious furniture moving or like really anything going on in this movie. It’s like a standard slasher film, right? I mean, it is bare bones, generic slasher. It’s got a little bit of heart to it just because it’s got a few corks in it, but the thing that I just found that took it down a couple notches was just nothing interesting has happened.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: The people in the movie are not doing interesting things, and it made me sort of pined for Friday the 13th you know, I’m not a huge Friday, the 13th guy, but at least in that movie, people do stuff right. They go on walks right, swim, and they take their clothes off and have sex. Like I didn’t get to see anybody.

To have sex in this movie.

Craig: No.

Todd: That’s why horror films have these scenes. They gotta have something interesting to fill the time. And this movie didn’t.

Craig: Yeah, really not. I mean, it was the, the movie was inspired by Friday the 13th and I think that’s pretty obvious. I mean, from the score to the cinematography.

Felt very much like a Friday the 13th movie, except you’re right. Kind of boring like this killer that just kind of ambles around and you only see his or her feet and lots of killer POV shots. Slap a burlap sack on the killer’s head or a hockey mask, and it virtually could be a Friday, the 13th movie right up until the end.

And that’s, you know, I try not to read too much about these things if I don’t know anything about them already. I try not to read much about it, about them before going in the headlines of, of, uh, of a couple of reviews. And, um, one of them said something like, uh, pretty much mediocre slasher that is. Saved by an interesting twist at the end, and so I was like, Oh, good.

Like, you know, the whole time I was watching it, I’m looking at my watch and I’m like, okay, surely the twist is coming. Okay, here it comes. Here comes

Todd: and you’re waiting a while, weren’t you?

Craig: Yeah. And there, I mean, there is a twist at the end, but it’s not like it comes all the way out of left field. I think it was somewhat easy to call and maybe because I knew there was going to be a twist that.

It made me kind of predict it. Yeah. In terms of mystery, like you know who done it, I figured it wasn’t going to be obvious, and so I kind of eliminated the obvious suspects and that didn’t leave many people to choose from because by the end. Pretty much everybody’s dead except for a couple of people.

And so, you know, it’s gotta be one of them unless somebody you’ve never seen before, just captains to pop in. But that seemed pretty unlikely and it wasn’t the case. So anyway, yeah, I mean, I don’t know. I don’t even know where to really start talking about this because literally so little happens. I mean, it opens up.

Just randomly with a bunch of guys in the back of a truck, like yelling and chanting, like coming down the road. And I think that the whole purpose of that scene was just so that we could see the sign for like the dorm complex cause nothing else comes of it. And then we see some guy who we don’t know running in the dark, um, from somebody, apparently any.

Stops and crouches down in some bushes and is, is apparently hiding from somebody when all of a sudden somebody reaches out from behind him and grabs him, strangles him, and also stabs a knife into his hand and kind of rips through his hand.

Todd: That was weird, wasn’t it?

Craig: It was. I mean, it was a nice little practice.

Gold effect with the hand cutting and everything, but, and then it just jumps to this college party and we have no idea who that initial guy was. Still don’t, we have no idea. Yeah. We have no idea why he was being chased or why he got killed. And you never find out. And then it kind of picks up with, uh, the main character whose name is Joanne and she is at a party with her boyfriend.

Tim, Tim is going on a ski trip with some of his buddies and he’s kind of trying to convince you and to go with him, but she says that she can’t, and it seems like they’ve also been talking about like maybe moving into with one another, but, uh, she can’t commit or something. There’s all this relationship stuff, which you think must be significant in some way, but then Tim leaves and goes.

Skiing with his buddies and you never see him again. So like, yeah, all this set up is set up for nothing. Like that scene could have been cut entirely.

Todd: I feel like it was set up because they had an extra actor and they wanted to give a part to them and they’re like, Hey, let’s get this guy in the movie.

We’ll call him Tim and we’ll give you guys a little something to do to Pat out the time.

Craig: And I was thinking maybe either it was a red herring or. Somehow Tim was going to show up again, like Tim was going to maybe show up and be the killer, or maybe we would find out that Tim never actually got, you know, maybe he never actually left.

Maybe he got killed before he left, but no. He’s just there and then he leaves and then that’s it.

Todd: We get to see that, uh, Daphne Zuniga is in this. That was fun.

I had to do a double take. I didn’t even read the cast list before I, uh, and I was probably only half paying attention during the credits and when she popped up on screen, I was like, wait a minute. That’s not, Oh my God. It is.

Craig: Yep. Yep. Very, very young and fresh faced.

Todd: She was the princess in Spaceballs and a bunch of other stuff since then.

But uh, yeah, very her very first film as well. So that was interesting to see. And I was really excited cause I thought, Oh well we get to see her through most of the movie too. I thought maybe she’d be the final girl. No, no, no, no.

Craig: Absolutely not. The bulk of the movie. You know, I took a whole page of notes.

I don’t know why nothing happens. Um, but the, the whole bulk of the movie is, so there’s Joanne and then she’s got like this. Everybody else is going away on Christmas break. You know, I read just the synopsis and it said on Christmas break, these students stay behind. And I was like, Oh, it’s a Christmas movie.

Maybe we should save it. And I’m glad that we didn’t save it because. It’s not Christmassy at all

Todd: of Christmas in here. No, it’s not a single string of Garland, not a single ornament, nothing.

Craig: There is one scene in the kitchen where there’s some Christmas lights. Yeah. What is it? The one character Patty says, ha, Merry Christmas.

That’s it. That’s the the only reference really.

Todd: You know, honestly, that flew right by me because it’s pretty typical in dorms for there to be Christmas lights hanging up in rooms. I just assumed that that’s what that was. And I thought she was making a joke. Yeah.

Craig: Well, and to be fair, it’s in California where it’s not like they get a whole lot of snow there.

Things. So it’s not like, you know, I should have been expecting some heavily atmospheric Christmas movie, but whatever. So they’re staying there, uh, over Christmas break, this small group of them, it’s Joanne and another girl named Patty, a couple of guys named Craig, and. Brian. Yep. And they’re the main ones that are staying.

And then there’s, uh, Daphne’s a nega who plays Debbie. And she was going to stay, but at the last minute, her parents called and said that she had to come home because her grandma was sick or something, and they wanted her to spend, uh, the holidays with them. So that’s it. I mean, it’s just this group of kids, I think that all of them are students, but Joanne like runs.

This co-op, like that’s her job, I guess. I guess they must all work there in some capacity since they’re staying back and helping.

Todd: I mean, they help for about five minutes. They cleaned some tables. I think they haul a couple picnic tables out. Joanne makes a phone call to somebody who’s like, are you going to get the tables?

Oh, you said you wanted the tables. She’s making arrangements for the tables and then they play pool and. Walk around for a while. I mean, that’s the rest of the movie, basically. Pretty much.

Craig: Debbie definitely is a got, by the way, I didn’t write down anybody, any of the other actors names because I didn’t recognize any of them.

Um, very few of them even have headshots on I am DB and the ones that do, uh, Joanne, the main girl. Has a head shot, but this is her only movie. So the first, I guess, thing that happens is Debbie’s there for that one day and she helps out that one day and then the next day she is leaving. Hi, I’m Gwen downs just with my parents now.

And I just want to stop by and say, so I’ve had Pam to help. That’s okay. Debbie will manage. Where are you going? Well, my grandmother’s in the hospital so wrong and go back East for the holidays. Sorry to hear. That was something that serious, but my mother really wants me to go, well, I guess it’s an Explorer some time.

Yeah, I don’t know where I’m going to be living, but I’m sure I’ll run into you on campus. Okay, well, good luck in the next few days. And Joanne’s like, Oh, did you make that supply list? And she’s like, yeah, I did. It’s up in the supply room, and Joanne’s like, that’s all right. I can get it later. And she’s like, no, no, no.

My parents aren’t here yet at all. I’ll run up there and get it. And so she goes up to this very, very dark supply room where you can’t even see anything that’s happening until she finally turns the light on and you see her parents pull up because apparently the supply room is on like. In like a shed on the roof.

So she hears her parents honking, so she leans over the roof and he’s like, I’ll be right down. But the mom gets anxious, I guess, and sends the data to get her and on his way up the stairs, which by the way, this dorm is like, I w I would say at least eight stories high, and I guess it doesn’t have an elevator.

So this, so this, you know, heavyset, old dad is climbing these eight stories of stairs and he’s met in the stairwell by someone wearing Keds and jeans

Todd: and,

Craig: and wielding a baseball bat with nails in the end of it. And he gets bludgeoned with. The bat and is apparently dead. Then the next thing we see is the mom’s sitting in the car, and I kind of liked this shot, how it’s shot from the outside of the car on the passenger side, so it’s shooting past her, but beyond her on the other side, you can see the killer reach into the open window very quietly and unlock the back door, um, and then gets in the back door.

Apparently. Because he strangles the mom. Meanwhile, Debbie comes down the stairs, finds her dead, dad runs screaming out to the car where she opens the passenger door and her mom falls out. Not only strangled, but her throat also cut from the wire. So there’s blood and stuff, and this is hilarious. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen this happen in a horror movie before from the fright.

She passes out

and then the killer. Then the killer grabs her by the arms and pulls her back behind the car and backs over.

Todd: It’s creative.

Craig: It was creative. I just thought it was so funny that she just passed out and then he just dragged her under there and ran her over. Um, I was reading the Wikipedia summary afterwards and it said that the killer. Uh, ran over her head and her like head exploded. I didn’t see that. I have no idea what edit we saw.

Like you said, um, it was one of the British video nasties, and so they ended up having to cut quite a bit of the Gore. I mean, I don’t think that as far as time is concerned that it. Was any significant amount of time, but, uh, you don’t see a whole lot in these no kill shots for the most part. You just see the aftermath and not much of it at that

Todd: I found a, a shot, a site where they, um, did a comparison of the scenes that were cut and most of what was added back into the director’s cut is just little extensions on otherwise, um, just kind of unimportant scenes.

But then a few of these killings did have more Gore and more blood in them that were excised, like you said, of the bat. One was one of them. He got a couple more whacks with the bat and there was a bit more of a better lit and more graphic kind of depiction of the side of his head as the bat was coming away from it at one point.

But as far as I, I didn’t see that the. Car. Actually the carpet actually showed rolling over her head. What it does, I think is kind of neat and clever cause we’ve all had this experience, is that a, it just shows the back of the car lift up and go down as he backs up so you can see it’s run over something.

So I thought that was clever actually. I thought these first few killings really showed some promise for the movie because they were really brutal. And I knew that this was a sort of low budget film and I felt like they didn’t pull too many punches in that, especially the strangulation. And I don’t know what it is for me about strangulation.

Maybe it’s just something that’s more real to all of us as a possibility, or we can just imagine it so easily what that would be like. But to me, those are some of the most horribly brutal killings that you can see, like in a movie, especially when it’s done with a wire like these are, and that guy reaches over and he gets that wire around her, this woman’s neck, which conveniently like has a scarf around it.

You know, this is all pretty low budget, but it gets that wire around her neck and she’s being strangled for a good, I don’t know, it could be eight to 10 seconds. It’s uncomfortable long. And then the blood underneath the, uh, scarf, you know, starts to kind of seep through. So it starts to show itself and see through.

So you can see that it’s cutting. And I realized, Oh, they’re just giving more time for the effective. Kick in, right? That’s probably why that was so long, but actually it had the effect of a pretty brutal killing. And then the idea that he ran over this girl, I saw these first three killings, one right after the other, and I thought, wow, okay, this movie’s got a little bit of game.

Craig: Yeah, I thought so too. And that, that was it. Like, I think it was not just the brutality and strangulation, I think is, you know, so uncomfortable because it’s slow. You know, you get hit in the head with a bat, you’re out, you get shot, you’re out, you get a machete to the face, you’re out. But like you have time to think about it when you’re getting strangled to death.

Um, and. That’s pretty scary. Uh, but yeah, the, the brutality and the fact that they happen in such quick succession, I’m like, Oh, man. I mean this, it felt ambitious, but then after that, it just slowed to a snail’s pace, really. And it was quite a while before anybody else died, and the next kill just seemed like.

Oh, we have to have somebody to kill, so we will. And also, like you said, it’s just a lot of them like playing pool and walking around and talking, and the stakes just don’t even seem that high. And then another thing that irritated me a little bit, even though it shouldn’t, because it’s very par for the course, for these kinds of movies where there were lots of setups that ended up being fake scares, like, Oh, I hear something.

Something bad’s going to happen. Oh, Nope. It’s just the custodian that happens so many times and like, the music is swelling and the people are scared and it’s like, Oh, hi. It’s just me. I was just, um, cleaning the bathroom.

Todd: Yeah. Or like two people will go investigate something and they’ll split up and you’re like, okay, we know what’s going to happen here now.

Then they just come back together again and end up back up full rope. But you’re right, like the music is extremely aggressive in this movie and this movie would, I think. Wouldn’t even be as good as it is without the music. The music is really the only thing. In many ways, the only thing really adding tension to these scenes because the cinematography is nothing good.

It’s too dark. Most of the time. It’s pretty uninspired. It really has that feel of some guys who were just like shooting this thing on weekends and evenings who probably did a lot of it in one take or didn’t have a lot of film to burn, you know? So I mean. That’s kind of uninspired, but with this music track underneath it, I was really impressed with the music itself.

So I went back and I looked up, did you look up the composer? This movie? No. Christopher Young is huge. In Hollywood as a composer, and this was one of his very, very first pro. This was basically the second project he ever did in 1982 and his first project was in 1968 and from 1982 on, he was composing four or five movies a year.

Listen to this, he did the music for Hellraiser invaders from Mars flowers in the attic. Okay. If the fly to Hellraiser to barbarian queen too, you know, he kind of did a lot of it, of the dark half tales from the hood species, virtuosity copycat that movie with um,

Craig: Sony Weaver and Harry Connick jr

Todd: and Harry kind jr.

Yeah. Unforgettable hush rounders. Entrapment. This guy is big. He’s done a ton of big blockbuster movies as well as a bunch of, you know, small kind of nothing movies, and he’s continuously dipped into the horror genre. So he did the music to the remake of the grudge and the exorcism of Emily Rose. He was the composer for Spiderman three.

Wow. I’m not going to rattle off all of these, but a lot of the movie

Craig: you already did,

Todd: if you would like.

Well, the new pet cemetery, he did the music to that too, and I’m going to stop there, but let’s just say there are like 128 composer credits on B, and the guy’s still going,

Craig: keep going. We don’t have anything else to talk about.

Todd: A little closer to home for me. There’s a series of movies here in China called the monkey King that were big hits here, and I don’t think anybody else has heard of them in America, but they’re huge. Blockbuster hits here and they’re still going with the series, and he did the music for the first two.

And that’s kind of weird to have an American composer doing that. So yeah, a great music for a movie like this that is more or less pretty shitty. I could not believe the music was so good.

Craig: It was very, I mean, Friday the 13th kind of has its own, I don’t want to say its own score, and it, it doesn’t remain consistent throughout the whole series, even though there are.

Suggestions of, you know, similar themes and things in the music throughout the whole series. But, um, this. It reminded me of the score of a Friday the 13th in the way that it helps to establish tension. And I do like the Friday, the 13th movies. I know that a lot of them are bad, but I still think that they’re fun to watch.

And I think music is used effectively in those, and I think that it is here too. I just think that the reason that it’s more effective in the Friday, the 13th movies is that there’s in those movies. There’s more of a payoff. Like it just felt kind of cheap here to keep building the tension, only to have it fizzle because nothing happens.

Um, like you said, there are, so there’s this guy. It’s only supposed to be the five of them there apparently, but they keep seeing this other guy named John Hemet, and Patty in particular is very frightened of him because he’s quote, a weird guy with fuzzy hair like that. Apparently weird guys with fuzzy hair are to be stayed away from.

And they’re scary. Uh, he looks like I’m Garfunkel. He looks like art dark, like,

Todd: that’s good,

Craig: but he’s this, he’s this weird guy and he’s kind of creeping around and he keeps kind of popping up and like, Joanne. Um, goes to his apartment and like leaves him a note. But then he keeps popping up. And like you said before, like they’ll go out looking for him at night. And not only do they keep splitting up.

Okay. So like they’ll split up two and two, nothing will happen. So they’ll all come back together and then they’ll split up in a different way and go off. And it’s, you keep thinking and, and then so like. There’ll be in pairs and there’ll be off away from one another, and then the pairs will be like, well, I think we better split up too, which is always a great idea.

And so of course, what you’re thinking is, Oh, Oh, they made the Cardinal sin of splitting up. They’re gonna get killed. But like you said, you know, Oh, the music’s getting scary, the music’s getting scary, but then they’ll just scare each other. Like they run into each other around a corner or they won’t even scare each other.

Like they’ll just come back up. Nope. Didn’t find him like happens two or three times, like for 20 minutes. It’s pretty boring.

Todd: My favorite one of these is when Joanne is stuck in the elevator, there is an elevator in this dorm and they use it a couple times. Joanne gets into the elevator. This is one of those, well, let’s split up.

You go in the elevator, I’ll walk up the stairs. It’s so stupid and we’ll meet at the top. Anyway, she gets in the elevator, presses the button, and after a few seconds all the lights go out and the power has been hit and then. Almost immediately she hears this banging and and movement above her in the elevator and it’s building the music and it’s building the music and it’s showing us this trap door and the elevator above her.

The trap door opens and pushes aside and a flashlight comes in. And it’s bill, the maintenance man who happened to be in his office and he says, Oh, I just, you know, I saw the power went out and I heard the elevator grind to a halt. So I thought I would come in here and check it out. Bill has split second timing to be able to get from his office.

Into the elevator shaft and lower him down to the elevator. However, he had to do that to be able to get to Joanne in about 20 seconds. That felt particularly cheap to me. We know the reason, the only reason Bill’s in this movie, it’s if you can see it a mile away as he’s, cause he could be a body that doesn’t have any stakes.

Uh, and he early on complaints that his drill is missing. Which again, Oh, wow. I wonder if we’re going to see that again. Bill’s missing drill leads to one of probably the most notorious scenes from this movie, which is an honest to goodness drill killing. This is the next one. It’s been 38 minutes into the movie and like you said, nothing’s happened and a whole bunch of fake scares.

Bill goes into the bathroom and we get our killer POV shot and we see this guy, this, these hands plug a very, very long extension cord into the wall and pick up a drill. Then we see POV shot of this guy coming up behind bill who’s taking a really long time to wash his face. And then we see in the mirror this arm, grab, wrap around and grab bill, and then we see the same arm.

Pick up the drill again from the

Craig: Flory casually

Todd: like,

Craig: like, like apparently this guy’s arms fan is like six feet long because he’s supposedly like holding bill down in the sink with one hand and then just very comfortably and casually reaching down with his other hand and slowly picking up the drill.

Like

Todd: second time. It was the same hand to his right hand is around Bill’s mouth, and then his right hand is also somehow picking up the dirt. This guy had two right hands, I think is probably what it was, and he drills bill and I was so excited because of the brutality of the first bit, but in the cut that we saw, which I think is the original release.

Or at least what was eventually released on video in the eighties. Um, you just kind of see the drill, go towards his head for a minute, and then you see some blood splatter on the wall. Uh, and then the killer was holding the drill and breaks the radio with the drill that bill had set on the counter when he came in.

So there’s just a bit of blood. Now, if you go and you look at the cut scene. It’s a pretty gruesome actual, you can see the drill going into the head and brain matter splattering around everything.

Craig: Yeah. I think that we saw the British release because did you notice that the title was different? Uh,

Todd: was

Craig: pranks?

Uh, our title card was pranks, which was the title that it was initially released in the United States under, but didn’t perform well, so they changed it. So, I don’t know. It could be, like you said, the original. American cut. I don’t know. Um, but yeah, I was a little bit disappointed cause you didn’t really see anything.

Not, not that I care necessarily. You know, I don’t need a lot of Gore.

Todd: Not Gore hounds.

Craig: No, I don’t need a lot of that. If things are interesting, but without it in this case, it just wasn’t particularly interesting. This isn’t a character that you care about. We’ve only seen him twice. He showed up to complain about the drill being gone and then he showed up to scare her in the, uh, elevator.

And then here he is. You know, taking a bath in the sink, in the bathroom. I mean, that’s it. It’s just some random guy. And that was something else that kind of frustrated me about the movie too, was they like, okay, so you’ve already got that John Hemet, the weird, frizzy hair guy. Um, and then they introduce other people and like this guy who comes to buy desks, and his name’s Bobby Lee Trimble, and he’s just like this skeezy guy.

Who shows up to buy desks and creep on it.

Todd: Nice little base you folks through here the other night.

Craig: How’d you know about that? Oh, I come by here every once in a while. You’re all alone. I mean, is anybody else stepping yet? Yes. As a group. The best here? Alright, you take care now. Bye bye. He’s super creepy with her to the point where I’m like, Ugh.

Obviously this guy’s not the killer. That would be way too obvious. And I thought the same thing about, I thought the same thing about John too. Like I thought, well, I suppose that he could be, but it seems like they’re trying so hard to make him seem like the creepy guy. I can’t imagine that it is him.

And, and then there’s other things too. Like there’s, at one point we see, you know, somebody creeping around, but every time somebody gets killed. The, the person who we’ve seen creeping around is wearing blue jeans and like converse sneakers, and there’s another part where somebody creeping around and it ends up being John, but he’s wearing something totally different.

He’s wearing like workman’s pants and boots and so like, they don’t even, I don’t know, it just,

Todd: it’s not even effective as a red hair. No.

Craig: Yeah. And, and so they continue to just. Run around together. Like I, I’m trying to think. I’m like, how do we get to the next kill? Well, okay, so then there’s more running around.

Todd: No, but, but, but, but, but the, there’s a, there’s a dinner scene

Craig: and kind of, that’s it. That’s it.

Todd: Well, first of all, you got to mention, since you brought up Bobby, we see them a little bit at the beginning. 38 minutes into the movie. Shortly before this drill killing scene, we felt, we finally see Bobby again and he’s an, I don’t know if it’s like his apartment or a motel room or something, and he’s calling Joanne and saying he’s going to come over.

In the meantime, he’s got this woman he’s with or whatever. It’s like, who are you calling, who are you talking to? And she’s whatever in a negligee. And he goes to leave and she’s like, don’t, why don’t you just stay here with me in bed? And. She pulls down her top to try to entice him to stay. Uh, and he just like, yeah, whatever.

He’s a Dick, he’s a real jerk. And he’s like, ah, no, just go back to bed. So that we get bad as our TNA for the movie. And again, I don’t need to see TNA. We have to talk about it because it’s a horror movie and this is part of the genre. But like I said, like you said about the kill, like I was looking for something interesting.

And at this point I’m like. Where’s the TNA going to come in? Oh, that’s it. That’s it.

Craig: Like she just pulls her top down and stands there with her boobs hanging out. Like it’s not sexy. It’s, no, it’s not interesting.

Todd: Well lit or anything like that. It’s not very flattering for the actress either. So you’re just kind of like,

Craig: again, it’s not.

It’s not nice to objectify people, but she’s not even that good looking. So like it’s,

Todd: it’s not

Craig: like it’s exciting like woo, yay. Finally. No, I mean I did write down boobs, but that’s it. But he, he goes out to go for a drive, which is apparently a pretty long drive cause he doesn’t show up again until the last five minutes.

Todd: Minutes, but we know by that point he’s not the killer. Right. I mean, he’s gone as a red herring because now that he’s proven himself to be somewhere completely different the whole time, like, you know?

Yeah. But then they set up a meal and I just wrote down what was on the table because I loved it to hold big chickens, French fries. A large salad. I think a small bowl of tomato soup and big loaf of Italian bread.

Craig: Huge. A huge loaf of Italian bread. Yeah, I think it was. I think it was Craig that brought in, I don’t know.

I got the guys mixed up.

Todd: It really completes the meal is what it does. He glad he brought it in,

Craig: right? But somehow like, okay, so he brings it in. He puts it on the table. He walks back to the kitchen to talk to Joanne. I think, who is. Cooking or something. And then he comes back out like I have in my notes.

Somebody stole the bread exclamation point. Like, Oh my God. Um, they see the door slowly closing. So the bread thief has just left. And so they, they run out after the bread thief. Um, the food is left alone and then. The killer, presumably because he still has his baseball bat with the spikes in it takes the bat and destroys all the food just to be mean, I guess

Todd: what is the point of this when first when they swipe the bread, I thought.

Are we going to get some kind of murder by bread coming

Craig: up now that I would have liked to have seen?

Todd: I was really hoping, but now it’s just a, this is one of those weird things and it turns out. Should I say it? I mean, spoiler alert, the person who took the bread wasn’t even the killer. Like literally a guy came in and needed some bread, took it as opposed to the chickens or the plate of fries.

Right. Tomato soup really wanted that giant ass loaf of bread.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. I guess bread travels. Well, who knows? But, so anyway, so I guess now they’re worried about the bread thief for something. So again, they and, and they, every time they’re like. That darn old John Hemet, like he, you know, like he’s the crazy old guy out in the woods.

Oh, it must’ve been that old crazy coot stealing our, our bread. And so they split up to go look for him again, or the power goes out, whatever a bit stupid stuff happens, the power goes out. And so, um, they split up again. The girls are together, up in a room. They yelled down off. The balcony to Brian and they’re like, get up here because it’s dark and we’re scared, and he’s like, okay, I’m coming.

Then he’s coming up the stairs in the stairwell and he runs into somebody, not physically, but meet somebody and this person is shining a flashlight in his face so he can’t tell who it is, and then he just takes a machete to the shoulder. Is that, I guess because. Then we don’t see him again until we see his body later.

Todd: That was disappointing as well.

Craig: It was, I mean like, okay, machete, kill, that’s, that’s cool. But like he just takes one slice down the shoulder and falls down. Like that’s, that’s it. And so then the other guy, Craig. Meets the two girls in their room and Joanne’s like, one of us needs to stay here and wait for Brian, but the other two should try to go get the power on.

And Patty’s like, well, I’m not staying by myself. So Joanne’s like, okay, I’ll stay by myself. So Craig and Patty go down to the kitchen, I guess is where the fuse box is. Even though the power’s off, they hear like boiling water and she’s like, Oh, somebody must have left the pod on like. What, like over the fire, like I don’t, I don’t,

Todd: the

Craig: power is out.

I don’t get it. Craig goes off to the fuse box and leaves her standing in the middle of the kitchen. It’s so dark, but we see him like take a blow to the head and fall down and then she’s just standing there and that’s when like the Christmas lights are flashing and she’s like Hardy har Merry Christmas or whatever.

Then she gets grabbed from behind. Does he like choke her out or,

Todd: yeah, either chokes rotary knocks her over the head or something lame like that and drags her away. Yeah.

Craig: And then I thought it was hilarious. He carries her in his arms and puts her in a giant industrial pressure cooker that is boiling and, and you know, steaming away, but he puts her in there and there’s no reaction like.

I’m sorry, but even if you passed out from fright or something, if somebody dips you into boiling water, I think that would probably shock you awake. But no, not petty. But she does at the last minute, just kind of gingerly like try to reach out and get out

Todd: so gingerly. Like she’s taking her time with it.

It was so crazy because I expected to see this, like her

Craig: trying to leap out and

Todd: scream and he’s going to push her down or something like that. No, what a waste. She’d

Craig: be all blistered and gross. But no,

Todd: God, it would have been so good and it wouldn’t have taken that much money or effort,

Craig: but no, she just, she just kind of gingerly reaches her hand out and he just kind of gingerly pushes it back in and then close the lid.

So again, here we are. And now I’m looking at my watch and there’s still like 15 or 20 minutes of this movie left. And I’m like, what is going to happen? Like pretty much everybody is dead. At some point they had called the police, the police came and they were like, Oh, there’s this frizzy hair guy, and he’s scary.

And he’s like, Oh, well we picked up a frizzy haired guy earlier, so it’s probably him so. I’ll let you know. There must be like a whole gang of frizzy hair band. It’s like running this town.

Todd: And I’m like, what kind of a cop is this? Like they told him his name, his full name, like couldn’t he just get on his radio and be like, Hey, that guy that you picked up, was he John, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

He’s apparently got to go to the station to find that out. So

Craig: now it’s just, um, Craig and Joanne left and somehow they’re like, they’re like looking around together. And this John Guy shows back up. And to be fair, he is weird, like he’s kind of wild eyed and odd, but he runs into Joanne and she’s like fighting him.

But then he starts saying things like, you’ve got to trust me. I’m trying to get you out of here. But. He’s also kind of pursuing her and like, she’s like, you know, closing doors and hiding behind doors, and he’s trying to get in. But what he’s saying is, I’m trying to help you. And at this point I’m like, surely he is, you know, like, I don’t.

I had no idea what was going on at this point, but she fights him for a while and then Craig shows up and fights him for a little while, and then somehow she gets separated again, and then she fights him again for a while, and then Craig gets him with a machete to the shoulder. That he’s okay for a little bit and eventually it’s Craig,

Todd: wait a minute.

Craig: Isn’t this right for you? My messed up.

Todd: Yeah, you’re right. You’re right. You’re right. But I just wanted to point out one, one thing that just had me, I almost fell off of the sofa. It’s during this whole bit. It might be bef. I think it’s before John has dispatched, but, uh, Joanne and Craig are. Crouched down and they’re crawling through, almost like kind of sneaking through what looks to be like a little tunnel or something and they’re trying really hard to be quiet.

It’s supposed to be a very tense scene. And Craig like kicks a piece of metal with his foot and then he steps over it and his other foot kicks the piece of metal too. And then Joanne follows behind it. Kicks it again with her foot and kicks it a fourth time with her other foot, this piece of metal.

Neither of them can step over it to save their life. He just couldn’t get over that. I thought, are they trying to be funny here?

Craig: And in that same moment, we see them crouched down like in the entrance or exit of whatever it is that they’ve been in, and we see John’s legs walk. By right in front of them and a split second after it walks, after the legs walk by right in front of them.

Craig’s like, we have to take them out. Like just talking out loud, like he’s standing right there. He can hear you. But he convinces Joanne that they, you know, they’re never going to get out of there if they don’t, you know, take this guy out or whatever. So she goes to be a distraction. And when John is distracted by her, Craig attacks him and they tussle, but then Joanne hits him over the head.

With something and he falls down. Now I assumed that he was just knocked out and that he would be back, but no, apparently hitting him over the head with whatever she hit him over the head with killed him and so he’s dead now. So now there are only two people left.

Todd: This is, this is what I was expecting, like Tim to come back or something.

I mean, maybe the next thing would be like a ski pole, the head or something. I really couldn’t imagine that it was going to be either Craig or Joanne, but then. Craig just turns around and says to Joanne, literally out loud, this is the actual line. It’s been me the whole time.

Craig: Don’t you want to stand? It’s been me the whole time. I’m the one. Yeah, and then he just explains it. John Hemet knew like,

Todd: like this, this

Craig: the creepy frizzy hair guy has only been creeping around cause he knew Craig was a murderer apparently. And uh, he was just trying to protect them. Now he couldn’t have during the day, you know, come up and said, Hey, your friend killed a bunch of people and cities had to kind of creep around.

At night, you know, wait for an opportunity, I guess. I don’t know. Um, but then again, I looked down at my watch, there are still 15 minutes left. I’m like, what is going to happen for 15 minutes?

Todd: Oh, God,

Craig: not married. So he chases her around maniacally. Like now all of a sudden, he’s just crazy. Like he’s laughing like a lunatic.

And, um, yeah. Professing his

Todd: love Jack Torrance, and they do have a cool scene in here where he is. I mean, the scene is cool in this movie. It’s kind of absurd, but they’re in like this tunnel with pipes going down like a maintenance tunnel or something. She runs down and he’s coming after her and it’s got this great, I mean, for a movie that can’t seem to have a steady camera to save its life.

It’s somehow manages to get this pretty decent Dolly shot of him coming towards her passing, grabbing the poles on the post on the side and saying creepy things. I thought, Oh, this is a pretty slick shot. This, this one shot in the movie is quite good. It seems really silly because, Oh, it’s been proceeded by like eight minutes of him just running around with her maniacally laughing so

Craig: well.

What I thought was so funny about that. Like he had told her about the tunnel before, and so then she went in there and she goes a long way in, but then she gets to a place where it’s a dead end and there’s a sign that says, . Entrance to the street is sealed off or something. So she unscrews a light bulb or breaks a light bulb or something so that at the end of the tunnel is in darkness and he can’t see that it’s blocked off

Todd: like the last six feet.

Right.

Craig: Even though the rest of the tunnel is lit, you know that last six feet is pitch black. And so he starts coming towards her and it is, it’s kind of creepy, but then he gets to the end, he’s like. Ooh, it’s dark down here. Hold on a second. I’m going to go get my flashlight and he turns around and leave.

Todd: it was so dumb.

Oh no. My favorite part of this whole deal, because this extends on forever, is when he does grab her and he’s talking to her and stuff like that, and he’s like. Hey, Hey, you want to see Patty? And he opens up a door, uh, and there’s Patty, you know, like in pieces or whatever in the closet, and it closes that and he’s like, Hey, Hey, you want to see Debbie  like, like two lockers down and opens it up.

But he’s got Debbie’s body in there as well. Like they took the classic woman runs around and discovers all the body scenes and turned it into killer. Gives an a score to tour. Yes.

Craig: Yeah. It was pretty hilarious. Meanwhile, Bobby Lee has shown up apparently to dumpster dive, I guess, and uh, he hears her screaming and so he sees them down through a grate and comes running around to rescue her, I guess.

And so he runs inside and he’s kind of tussling with Craig and stuff. Meanwhile, a cop car shows up and it’s like a clown car full of cops. Like, I’ve never seen this before. Like one car shows up. And like 12 cops roll out of it. Like, I don’t know what that was all about, but Bobby Lee, Bobby Lee and Craig are fighting down in the, wherever they are.

It looks like a boiler room or something, and Bobby Lee punches Craig and Craig goes down on the ground. And of course right at that moment is when the. Please come in and they see, you know, these two men, both of them kind of beat up one standing over the other and Craig’s like, Oh, thank God you’re here.

He’s a killer. He’s a killer. Oh man. This part was so contrived.

Todd: That’s the twist. You were waiting for Craig. I

Craig: guess the cops are like, stand still, don’t move. Meanwhile, Craig’s down on the ground, grabs a knife from behind him. Apparently the cops who are 12 feet away. You can’t see this

Todd: or hear

Craig: it because Craig’s like got the knife and he’s like holding it.

Menacingly it’s like, I’m going to kill you and they kill you. And so I guess Bobby Willie moves and the police shoot him through the chest and kill him and he’s dead. Yeah. And they think that he was the killer because. He too has frizzy hair

Todd: seal. This one

Craig: up boys. He must be that guy that they called about before and, Oh God, just so inapt.

Craig’s like, Oh, you got to go help my friends. They’re upstairs and they’re like, okay, let’s go. And he’s like. Nice. I think I’m just going to stay here and be like, okay.

Todd: So

Craig: all the cops go away and leave him there, and he just very, you know, casually with very little concern goes and gets Joanne who he’s knocked out, picks her up, cradle her in his arms like. Uh, I have to do this. I didn’t want it to come to this. I love you, but you won’t feel any pain. And then he walks her up.

They’ve been in the basement this whole time, but apparently he walks her up to the roof. I don’t know. I don’t even know. But there’s somewhere outside where there’s an incinerator that’s raging and you see him standing with her in front of the incinerator and you kind of hear the cops. Kind of coming behind them and then it just cuts back down to the street with these cops and they’re like, Oh, thank goodness we got here.

You know that guy. Killed a bunch of people and they’re like, what is that smell?

And they look and there’s smoke coming out of like this little chimney, and they’re like, Oh, it must be the incinerator is this most? Is this supposed to smell that bad? And the other cops like, well, I don’t know, but they’re going to tear it down anyway, so who cares? The end. That’s it. So I guess the twist is that Craig.

Got away with it. In the end, he killed everybody. Totally got away with it.

Todd: Now, that was the sort of bleak ending. I wasn’t really exp. I don’t know. What was I really expecting from this movie? Not a whole heck of a lot, but as far as predictability goes, I thought we’d have a final girl and we didn’t. We had a final guy.

The fact that he got away with it was it was a nice touch. Yeah, it was one of the few truly. Original wish things about the movie than in the school, you know, bit less things I have to say about it. Yeah. And all. But I also have a spot in my heart for these movies back when you could do this, because the horror market was so lucrative.

Basically, college kids could get together, scrape up together enough money to buy enough film and just kind of use whatever they had available to them to throw something together, uh, and make. Something out of it. You know, it’s cool that we’re sitting here talking about it now, you know? And that it’s on the internet and it’s been released.

And blue, blue Ray. And I guess there’s a co a really nice commentary on there, which I actually, just because I’m interested in the filmmaking process and this sort of, you know, scrappy type story, I would love to listen to their commentary and them shoot the breeze about how when they were in college, they made this movie and here’s all the backstory behind it.

You know? That would be,

Craig: that would be, yeah, but they probably had a good time doing it, you know? They literally filmed it over a Christmas break. Um, I think, you know, over the course of like three weeks, uh, and with these movies, these slasher movies from the eighties, on the one hand, they’re a dime a dozen, but on the other hand, the ones that really took off, it wasn’t necessarily that the ones that got.

The most attention were all that much better than any of the rest of them. Just things came together for certain ones of them. You know, Friday the 13th found an audience and, and became a franchise. But if you go back and look at that first movie, it’s not really anything special. I like it. Um, and I think there’s a lot of clever things going on there, but you know, it became, you know, this huge.

Franchise. Meanwhile, you’ve got other movies like house on sorority row, which I thought was really good. You know, one of the better ones that we’ve seen, and it didn’t get all that much attention and it hasn’t been remembered as fondly. So I feel like everything just had to fall into place for these things to do.

Well. And this one, for whatever reason, just didn’t, it’s got, I think, a 0% rating on rotten tomatoes. Um, but, um, I think it’s also kind of got. A little bit, at least have a cult following too, and there are some charming things about it. Some, some cute little moments. And like you said, the score is good.

Daphne’s the Negus first movie. So if you watch tons of horror movies, like obviously we do, I don’t think it’s a waste of time, you know, it’s, as we say all the time, it’s really kind of a time capsule. Even watching it on YouTube, it kind of took me back. To the day of watching these movies on VHS and the quality would be so low.

And like in the dark scenes, you couldn’t even see what was going on. So it kind of felt like a throwback to me, and because I had never seen it before, it was kind of fun just to put myself back in that. Time and that that frame of mind. So for nostalgia purposes, it was all right. I didn’t think it was a great movie, but I’m not angry that I spent an hour and 20 minutes watching it.

It was fine.

Todd: We’ve seen much worse with bigger budgets and, and something did come up. I mean, Daphne’s unique, his first movie, you know, the writer and director really didn’t do anything after this. Most of the other people didn’t do much. After this, Christopher Young, the composer went on to. Huge Hollywood career as a composer is very well respected.

And the makeup effects artist, Matthew Mungle, who did the special makeup and prosthetics effects in this movie. This was one of his first projects, and he’s basically done every movie you’ve ever heard of. He’s been the special makeup effects artists for it. Like 249 credits, like frickin Schindler’s list, Jurassic park, the Los world.

Wow. Dream warriors. Oh, cool. Up to now, like one of his early latest credits is he did the prosthetic makeup for Robert DeNiro in the Irish men. So, you know, even these little projects that we laugh at and we make fun of, end up being a calling card of some kind for the people who are in it and somehow get them ahead.

So maybe that’s another reason why we’re still talking about this movie today.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: Well, thank you so much for listening. And once again, thank you so much, Freddie, for recommending this movie to us. We’re continuing to do requests, so if you have requests, just look us up online, shoot us a message on our Facebook page, leave us a comment on our YouTube channel, or just go straight to our website, two guys that read 40 net.com so we’d love to hear from you guys and we also love to have you pass this along to other people.

To help expand our list if

Craig: you enjoyed.

Todd: Until next time, I’m Todd

Craig: and I’m Craig

Todd: with two guys and a chainsaw.

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark is a classic children’s book series from Craig and Todd’s childhood. This movie adaptation takes the imagery from the book’s nightmarish illustrations, and the urban legend tales that spooked us out so much as kids, and combines them into a “kids’ horror film” that manages to be the dark, twisted, no-holds-barred kids’ horror film that we have often lamented from our childhoods. A pleasant surprise and a fun film to talk about.

Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark (2019)

Episode 213, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: . Hello and welcome to another episode of two guys and a chainsaw. I’m Todd

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, it’s request extravaganza right now. Actually, two people requested today’s film, Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark, Frank and Karthik. So to Frank and Karthik, thank you so much for requesting this 2019 film because I was super excited for the excuse to watch this.

You know, normally we don’t do these more recent movies. But we’re going through requests, and I remember this book series so well from when I was a kid. I think you have to Craig, right?

Craig: Am I missing? Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. This was the thing. The first of these books was, came out in 1981 which was actually earlier than I thought.

The second one in 80. Four and I think the third one in 92 or 89 just before the author Alvin Schwartz had died. He was a very prolific children’s author and journalist did quite a few books, but definitely most famous for this series of books. And it’s not just. His writing, which is actually, it’s a collection of urban legends and folktales, many of which I had as a kid, you know, being pretty young, had never heard before this.

So this is a good way to bone up on your urban legends and folktales, is to just get all three books in this series and plow through them. They’re all super creepy. They’re the kinds of campfire stories and bedtime stories that people tell to get scared mostly from. American folklore, but probably the thing that really made this series work where the illustrations that go along with it.

I just elevated this book like two 11 yeah, Steven Gamble did the illustrations. Now he’s still alive and he’s illustrated many, many, many books, but he also was probably most famous for illustrating this series of books, and there’s just something about the illustrations. They’re abstract enough. And also a little gory and extremely creepy, but they’re in black and white and they’re in this against semi-abstract abstracted pen and ink thing to just kind of be acceptable, but very edgy for kids.

So my parents who were pretty protective, not super protective, but could get pretty protective about what I read and what I watched. They thought this, these books were fine for me, but libraries all across the country. We’re getting inundated at one point, I think at various points in history, um, requests from parents like take these books off your shelf.

They’re too gory. They’re too scary. They don’t, they’re not for kids. Well, they are for kids. Kids can handle material like this. They really can. And I personally feel like they should, but in any case, these creepy ass stories along with these creepy ass illustrations just make for three. Wonderful, wonderful books.

And it is the subject of this movie. Uh, and so yeah, I hadn’t seen this movie. I didn’t watch it last year when it came out. I fully expected this to be like an anthology type movie with a wraparound story. And I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it wasn’t. So that’s going to be really interesting to talk about because that you would think would be your first approach, right?

Is to just take a bunch of the stories in this book and anthologized them and then make a, just share a series of movies out of it. But that is not the direction that the producer, Guillermo Del Toro wanted to take with this. And I think it was a pretty decent choice. So anyway, Craig, uh, what is your history with this movie?

Craig: Oh, well, I saw it shortly after it came out. Um, I was excited to see it too, for the same reasons that you were. I mean, I grew up with these books. I can’t remember exactly how old I was, but young, probably like primary school. Um, and these books, I remember like the most exciting thing for me. Primary school were book fairs, like, yeah, book fairs where it, it was like Christmas, you know, like these outside companies would come to your school and set up these huge displays of books.

And I always remember seeing these books there. And of course I convinced my parents somehow to get them for me, not because of the content that I had to convince them, but because we were poor. But yeah, I, I, I’ve always been into horror ever since I was a little kid. My dad was into it. And at first, you know, I kind of tried sneaking around, watching movies, you know, from behind the couch when he didn’t know.

And they very quickly just realized that I was into it and kind of let me see whatever I wanted to see. Um, but these books, they were as frightening to me in a fun way as a lot of those horror movies that I would sit and watch with my dad, even though, you know. The stories are really simple. Most of them are a page or a couple of pages long.

Yeah, but like you said, the illustrations were just fantastic. And I remember sometime, gosh, I don’t know, it’s probably been 10 years ago or more, they reissued these books with different illustrations from a different illustrator, and as soon as I heard that they were going to do that, I jumped on Amazon or.

EBay or something and swiped up copies of the original three because I wanted to make sure that I had in my possession those originals with the original illustrations. Well, I guess that the new edition didn’t go over particularly well. I don’t know who’s. Idea that was, I think it was a really foolhardy idea because the illustrations were a large part of the appeal, uh, originally.

And I think that they’ve gone back, uh, since then to the original illustrations be I loved the books. I was really excited to see the movie. Yeah. And I was pleasantly surprised because I expected this to be a kids’ movie, and one could make the argument that it is, but it’s a little bit atypical in terms of horror movies for kids because I think this movie is genuinely scary and it doesn’t pull punches the way that a lot of horror movies for kids do.

Um, the stakes, the stakes are high. Uh, in the movie and people die and well, presumably, and not just the bad guys, some of the, some of the good guys and the people that you’re rooting for. Get it in this movie too. Uh, and that’s kind of atypical and I appreciate it. I still think that it’s something that young people who are into this kind of thing can handle, but, uh, it’s a little bit darker than I had anticipated, and I was pleasantly surprised by that.

Todd: Yeah, me too. And I would say it’s still a kids movie, but it’s definitely on that PG 13 edge of. Um, maybe not your elementary school student, you know, maybe your upper elementary or middle school kid could watch this. Yeah. I think I as a sixth grader would have eaten this movie. I was a little atypical in that and just a lot like you, I think.

But yeah, it does really do a fine job of riding that edge. It’s got a little bit of Gore in it. It’s got a surprising amount of violence. It’s not exploitative in that way. It’s just these are the creepy things. These are the creepy monsters. It’s all in service to the story and where it could go further, it doesn’t, so, you know, it’s, it’s a pretty decent mix.

And I think Guillermo Del Toro is kind of the perfect guy to do this. In a way. The movie reflects the book in that tone. It is a little gory. It’s a little gross. It’s a little spooky. It’s a little scary visually and the content, but not so far as. Do you would say, this is really inappropriate for children, like reading some Stephen King novel or something like

Craig: that?

Right, right.

Todd: So rides that line and he’s good at that. You know, he did Pan’s labyrinth. He did a movie called, was it, are you afraid of the dark? Is that right? With little creatures run around the darkness, which I. Kind of see more as a kids movie as well, but it’s also genuinely scary, I think. And that’s a remake actually, of another film, so,

Craig: yeah.

Gosh, I think you have the title wrong. I think it’s, don’t be afraid. I don’t know, but I know what you’re talking about.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: So yeah, Del Toro was the producer, and I definitely see his influence. Here. Um, but the director is a guy named Andre Overdahl, who I think is Norwegian or something like that. He did troll Hunter, which was a great movie.

Have you seen that movie?

Todd: It’s been on my list forever and I haven’t seen it. You should check it out.

Craig: It’s really good. He also did a movie, an English language movie called the autopsy of Jane DOE, which is kind of a weird movie, but also really atmospheric and I really enjoyed it. So the director too is a really talented guy and it shows, I mean, the movie is really well made.

It’s really cool to look at lots of interesting visuals and good story, which I feel like we better get into because the movie is only an hour and 48 minutes long. I took so many notes because so much happened. I mean, obviously we’re probably going to have to skip some things, but it hits the ground running and it doesn’t stop.

And until the last scene really, I was pretty impressed by how much content there was

Todd: and I, and like I said earlier, I was really impressed that it wasn’t an anthology film. I couldn’t believe that I, I really expected that. And that’s not what we got.

Craig: Yeah. Well, there’s another movie came out right around this time.

RL Stein. Uh, what were his books? Bumps. Goosebumps. Yeah. There was a goosebumps movie that did something very similar to this one, and that they incorporated. Uh, all the stories were not all, but some of the more famous stories into a larger narrative, I think was less success than this movie. I saw that movie to start Jack Black.

It was all right. I thought it was okay. Um, I thought kids might like it. I wasn’t a huge fan. I think that this one was more successful in the way that they put it together. And maybe that just has to do with the content. I don’t know. But, uh, the movie opens up. With a monologue from our main character whose name is Stella, played by Zoe Coletti.

All these young actors. Yeah. I don’t really know them from anything. It could just be because I’m old. You know, they may, the kids out there may know these folks, but I don’t, but it starts out with a monologue that’s repeated again. At the end, the stories heal. Stories hurt. If we repeat them often enough, they become real.

They make us who we are. They have such power. I learned on the very last autumn of her childhood, and then it cuts to 1968 we’re in mill Valley, Pennsylvania, which is a fictional town, potentially based on a real town in Pennsylvania where this mill stoked the economy of this small town, but eventually the mill when it was a paper mill and when paper products, uh.

For example, the U S mail started demanding less paper because of electronics and technology. They kind of went under. Um, so there’s a little tiny bit of basis in reality there, but fictional place, and we just get this kind of brief panoramic kind of view of some of our characters. We’re introduced to Stella.

Uh, as I already mentioned, kind of our narrator main character. We see her in her room, which is. The walls are covered with all these old horror movies. Um, and we see that she’s a writer and she’s writing her own stories and she’s kind of seems like, you know, your typical, a typical teenage girl, maybe a little bit.

Angsty, not really in with the popular crowd has kind of her own little band of misfits. Um, her friends are Augie, uh, played by Gabriel Rush and Chuck Austin  I think, and it’s Halloween night and they are going to go out for one last. Hurrah. I guess Stella kind of feels like they’re kind of getting old for this Halloween stuff, but they’re going to go out for this one last hurrah and they’re all in costume.

Augie is, what did he say was like a Perot or something? He, he’s a clown.

Todd: He’s a clown. It’s supposed to be a highfalutin clown,

Craig: like a hierarchy, whatever. Stella’s a witch. And Chuck asked his mom to make him a Spiderman con costume, but she took it very literally and just made him. A spider man. It was hilarious,

Todd: which is pretty funny.

Craig: And right away they play a prank on the town bully who is Tommy, who is a jock of some indeterminate sport. And uh, he’s got

Todd: a group.

Craig: Oh goons that he runs around with, and he’s also on a date with Ruth, played by Natalie Gans Orn, who is also Chuck’s sister. But these three kids prank, it’s a really clever prank.

They load up. They’re Halloween sacks with gross, nasty stuff. So when Tommy and his goons drive by and try to steal their candy, they actually steal this, you know, bag of nasty crap. And then when the guys, the jocks turn around to come back for their revenge or whatever, they throw flaming dog poop at them, which goes in the car, which is seems kind of dangerous.

Todd: This is a prank you could kind of get away with in the sixties right? Said, it’s so interesting to me that this movie is set in 1968 we’re constantly reminded of that because it’s on the nights of the election. It’s like the day before and the day of the election. The Vietnam war is going bad as a thread that goes through the film as well.

I was really, I don’t know, I was looking for thematic tie-ins here. Maybe I picked up on a few, but I did wonder if I was missing something here. Did you get a sense for why it was so important. That the election be going on the Vietnam war in this be set in 1968? Or, or was it just, uh,

Craig: well, 1968 was a really rough year, right.

If I remember correctly from history, you know, the Vietnam war was going on. I, I feel like, um, the Kent state massacre was that year Nixon was up for, I don’t remember if it was election or reelection, uh, but it’s, it’s his night. The biggest one that I saw was how a lot of the movie is about fear. And anger and how fear and anger can be really destructive forces.

And it was a really scary time with, you know, the conflict in Vietnam going on in the nation was really divided about that. And we were sending our young men, uh, off to Vietnam, and what many thought was, you know, not something that we should be involving ourselves with. And there were a lot of casualties and, and it does end up.

Being kind of a thread about, you know, kind of overcoming fear. So I think that maybe is why they chose to set it in that time period. It worked for me and I was really happy that it was set in this time period, because, you know, I love contemporary horror and I, you know, I love the modern amenities that we have in things, but some of the.

Tension gets taken out of stories when people are so easily connected. You know, I like that. We just don’t, we don’t have to have the, Oh, we’re out in the middle of the forest, so I don’t have cell reception. Like I get so sick of that conversation and movies now. So I like that, you know, these people are.

Just a little bit more isolated because they’re not so connected by technology. And that kind of raises the stakes a little bit. So I was pleased that they chose to set it in an earlier time.

Todd: Yeah, I agree with you. I felt, if anything, that was a, that was a good aspect.

Craig: The, uh, the bullies chase them, um, to, uh, drive in where they hide in this guy’s car, who they don’t know.

And his name is Ramon. Played by Martin Michael Garza. Nice looking kid. I guess he had to, uh, submit auditions for this two or three times before he was cast, but he was really interested in getting into it. And eventually the casting director changed. And so he submitted one last shot and he got in and he’s this guy, they don’t know, but he lets them in their car to hide from the bullies.

The bullies eventually find them. Um, and her all some racist stuff at Ramon cause he’s of a different ethnicity. I don’t know. They call them

Todd: wetbacks.

Craig: Yeah, because they’re in public. Nothing really goes down here. You just know that the jocks know who they are and they’re after him or whatever. But they eventually go away for the time being.

And Stella says, well it is Halloween, Ramon, do you want to see our local haunted house? And he’s like, sure, why not? So they go check out this haunted house and that’s where we get. Kind of the backstory for the spooky stuff that’s going to be going on for the rest of the time.

Todd: Yeah. Stella seems to know a lot about the local legends, probably because she’s really interested in writing and interested in horror and this kind of stuff.

Uh, and this house belonged to a very wealthy family who owned the mill at one time. Yeah. And the legend is that they had this young girl that nobody had ever seen before. Like they were embarrassed by her appearance or something. So there were no pictures of her that existed. Nobody had ever seen her, but they kept her locked up in the house.

She would tell stories through the walls of her internal prison there two people, scary stories. Uh, and then we end up getting a lot more backstory about why she was locked up and kind of why the family was embarrassed and some intrigue and things that was going on with the family themselves. But at this time, they’re just exploring a creepy sort of haunted house.

And Ramon, well, when, when he’s with Stella finds a little opening in the kitchen that leads to a downstairs seller. Really elaborate downstairs cellar area that even has a chamber within a chamber, and that turns out to be where Sarah was kept. So they find her old room and it’s really creepy and spooky.

And Stella finds a book in there. And this book when she opens it up, is Sarah’s handwritten book of stories. And it does not illustrated. Um, and not even all the pages are written on only really the first, I don’t know, third or quarter of the book has stories written on it and the rest of it is blank.

And at this time, people, the bullies have followed them to this house and they lock them in the basement. And as they’re begging to be let out, and, uh, the girl, uh, Ruth. Who’s still with the bullies is like, come on, come on, let me let me, you know what, my brother out, let’s stop doing it. Ah, this guy opens up the door and shoves her down there as well with them and closes it.

I don’t know. Was he like, he just acted like he was on something the whole time, like, like he was on some kind of drugs or was he just drunk? I don’t know

Craig: what it was, but he was drunk. Yeah. I mean, he is, he’s a pretty flat character. I mean, he’s just painted as, as the bullying. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that’s kind of for a purpose cause he’s the first one to get dispatched, you know, through, you don’t want to like him too much.

But, uh, yeah, I mean, th the whole deal with her telling the stories through the wall, the, the big controversy was supposedly after she told these kids the stories they would go missing. And there are, you know, there’s records of, during that time period, all of these children going missing. So, you know, there was this stigma around her and around them.

The family. And the rumor was that she hung herself, uh, at some point, uh, in the house. And then after that, the family kind of went away. But when they’re down there and they, they find that book, they get locked in. Um, another part of the legend is that if you. Came to the house after dark, and you asked Sarah to tell you a story.

She would, um, but then you would die. So of course, Stella,

Todd: and

Craig: they’re locked down there. She’s like, okay, Sarah, tell us a story. And then spooky thing, like they hear spooky noises. Yeah. And somehow mysteriously the door opens, even though nobody else is there. We already know that there definitely is supernatural stuff going on too, because at one point Chuck gets separated for the rest of them, from the rest of them in the house, and he hides in a closet to try to scare Augie.

But when he opens up the closet just to peek out, it’s as though he’s been transported back in time and he’s, you know, the, the, the house is lit and it looks new. There is a creepy old lady and like a Doberman sitting there. And so he closes the door again, and when he opens it again, it’s gone. But obviously weird stuff is going on and once they finally get out of there, Stella’s wish for a story comes true.

She flips through the book. And she flips past the last page, but then when she flips back, the last blank page has been filled in. Uh, and the title of this story is Harold, and she touches the ink, which by the way, is supposed to be the blood of the children that Sarah killed. And it’s fresh it smears and Harold is.

The story of this, uh, scary scarecrow that we’ve seen before. It’s a scarecrow on Tommy’s family’s farm. And she starts reading this story and we see it playing out. Tommy goes home, his mom’s mad at him cause it’s late and he’s drunk. And she says, you were supposed to deliver eggs to this family across the field or whatever.

And he’s like, do I have to do it now? And she’s like, yeah, you have to do it right now. Stella. Is reading this story about Tommy delivering eggs and what’s going on, and what happens is this really pretty frightening, uh, scarecrow. That’s like crawling in bugs. The bugs are crawling out of its ice sockets and out of its mouth and stuff.

It comes to life. And at first. It just kind of repositions itself at different places in the field. So Tommy keeps coming across it, but eventually it just full on comes to life. Tommy grabs a Pitchfork and pitchforks it, but it doesn’t have any effect on it. And the scarecrow pulls the Pitchfork out of itself and then pitchforks, Tommy.

Yeah. And you see it come out. Of his chest and the blood coming out of his shirt. And then there’s a really pretty great, you know, CGI effect, where Tommy becomes a scarecrow, like the straw starts growing out of his mouth and his ears and his hands turned into scarecrow hands. Granted, it’s dark, which is good, but it looks.

Pretty darn good. And I have to say just from this one scene alone, I am a little bit surprised that they got the PG 13 rating. This is pretty brutal for PG 13 to have a kid, I mean, he’s a teenager, but he’s still a kid. Get brutally killed in this way. I didn’t see it going that dark, especially that fast, and that may be really.

The most violent death, or at least the goriest, I guess maybe.

Todd: Yeah, it was surprising. And you know, when you see those times come through his stomach, I was like, Oh my gosh, that was crazy. But I don’t remember there actually being blood. I remembered there being straw from the very get go that came out from around where those times were.

But, um, I dunno. Maybe, maybe I’m wrong. I don’t

Craig: know. Maybe you’re right.

Todd: But maybe that was the only way they got away with it was because it was so supernatural and there wasn’t any blood involved that, but still, it’s very, very disturbing. Later on, we see him, you know, we see the scarecrow in the middle of the field is dressed.

Like Tommy. I guess the idea is now Tommy is the scarecrow. I don’t remember the story from the book, but it’s clear as day to me that they took the visual design of this monster is directly from the illustrations in the book, and they’ve done that with the monsters that we encounter through here. Very clearly, they’ve been taken, whether they were taken from another story and plopped in this one.

Or whatnot. They’ve still definitely taken the character designs from the illustrations and made them put them in the movie, which I liked that aspect of it. As a fan of the books, it was nice to see that nod to it. Right after that happens, Stella and Ramon go out to investigate because they’ve heard the Tommy’s missing and they, and she’s read this story and they go out to the field and that’s when they discover the scarecrow dressed like him.

But of course, what can they say? You know, they can’t really tell anybody this book. She tries to return the book. She goes right back to that place. She goes down in there to the basement and she puts the book right back on the shelf. In the meantime, Ruth has this, Oh gosh, I knew that. I knew where this was coming and going right away because.

I remember the story so well

Craig: from the book, but

Todd: Ruth has a little bump on her face that from, from probably she thinks like from when she was in the, uh, going through all that mess and the mansion or whatever, that she got a spider bite and it’s just kind of bothering her a little bit. We get a little bit of, um, precursor to what’s about to happen to her with that, but, uh, when they come back, the book has reappeared.

Ramona’s. Standing there, reading it in her bedroom, and she’s like, where did you get that from? And he’s like, Oh, it was, it was right here. You didn’t know you had it. She’s like, I put that book away on his like, well, it’s right here now. And then they open the book and as they’re looking at the book, a page starts writing it.

Craig: The edge of the guardian when she saw a big toe, it looks nice and clumsy, set up kind of stories.

Ah, Oh, he do not eat anything. You’re in the next story, whatever you do. I remember that one. That was one of the ones that I vividly remembered. Like you said, these are urban legends. Um, and so even in the story, what are the books? What you’re reading is. One version. I mean, these stories have been passed around forever.

And then, you know, in the story, somebody, you know, she makes the stew, she eats the stew, and then the corpse comes back. Where’s my big toe? Well, like you said, they’re scared because they see Auggie’s name, but of course he’s not taking it seriously. It seems, you know, stupid or like a prank or whatever.

But he also has fished out this big pot of stew out of his refrigerator. And I just thought that this whole setup was so funny cause he’s on the phone with his mom and he’s being snarky like a teenager complaining about his stepdad and how she’s never home. And, and then he’s like, well I guess I’m just going to eat the stew then.

And you don’t hear her side of the conversation, but he’s like the stew in the refrigerator will somebody made it.

Todd: Right?

Craig: And so he pulls it out and he’s spooning around in it. And like, you see the toe float up to the top, it’s so gross. Oh God. Uh, and eventually, you know, they’re, they’re screaming at him over the walkie talkie. Don’t do it. Don’t

Todd: do anything.

Craig: They don’t even know he has this stew. But, uh, he does, he eats it and like, he takes one bite of it.

Then he takes another and he gets the whole toe at his mouth. Oh,

Todd: at least he spits it out. I mean, the implication is he ate, he ate more because he, you know, flings it away and knocks the pot over and on the floor in the pot, there’s like an eyeball and just random chunks of meat. It is disgusting. And he’s retching and he goes upstairs.

Meanwhile, they’re kind of narrating the story to him. They’re like, you’re going to hear. Somebody saying, you know, where’s my toe? Where’s my tone? They’re like, do you hear it? You hear it? He’s like, no, the only person I hear saying that is you. And then after like the third time, suddenly he does hear something faintly.

It freaks him out and he drops the walkie talking. He kind of runs upstairs and as he goes into his bedroom. We see this corpse come into the house without a toe. It comes up the stairs, it goes down the hallway, and it is disgusting. And it, again, that looks like one of the most vivid illustrations out of that book.

It’s a fantastic design and it’s

Craig: scary. It’s really scary.

Todd: And this scene was full of tension because he hides under the bed and the door slowly opens like doors do with the knob turning and whatnot. Um, but then. It opens and there’s just nothing there. And he kind of looks back and he kind of looks forward and there’s nothing.

So he starts to creep out of the bed and you’re going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. Right. And as he’s doing that, he kind of get backs back in and then he comes back out a little bit, and then he turns up and realized there’s gotta be something on my bed. And it’s just great how that camera angles work in here to show us.

From his point of view, the bad, but not enough of the bed that we can see. There’s anything in there not, and I mean, he’s slowly lifts his head up to look at the bed. It’s Oh, so good. The way, the scene of stage.

Craig: Well, and it’s a fight. It divides your expectations because they’re building such tension to see.

What’s on the bed. You expect that that corpse to pop over the ledge at any moment, but when he finally can see up there, there’s nothing there. But then immediately he gets grabbed and pulled back underneath the bed as though the courts are under there within the whole time and he just didn’t know it.

Todd: Gosh.

Craig: And it pulls him not only under the bed, but it says though it’s pulling him into, I don’t know, another in through the wall or into, yeah. And meanwhile, his friends are racing to his house and like they’re in his house almost. And I’m thinking because. You know, I’ve seen a million of these movies that are targeted towards this age group.

I’m thinking, Oh, thank God they’re going to get there right at the last second, and they’re going to grab them and they’re going to pull them out and it’s going to be fine. No, no, no. It gets him, it gets him and he’s gone.

Todd: He’s gone for the rest of the movie. That is. It. I was surprised by that aspect of it too.

I really thought, I mean, big spoiler alert, but I really thought by the end, somehow some magic would bring all these people back and it wasn’t that way at all. These got these scratch marks that lead across the floor, like you dug his fingernails in as it was dragging him away, right to the baseboard of the wall.

I mean, they just look at this and they’re like. What happened. Uh, and now they’re freaked out. Shock and Stella and Ramon convene at a, the drive and again, where it’s just empty. It’s the middle of the day, and they’re talking about what they’re going to do. And they try to burn the book and they throw the book into the pot and they try to set it on fire.

And. You just tips over in the book spills out, they can’t burn it.

Craig: There’s also a monologue in there, I feel like from Stella first, Tommy disappeared then, not Augie. They had their stories in the book and it happens every night. Jesus hated it.

You don’t read the book. The book reads you, which I thought was a really kind of interesting concept. I wish it had played out a little bit more. I kind of wish that the stories that these people found themselves in were a little bit more personal. Now Ramones is, and so I think that’s kind of what the setup was of that.

It is an interesting idea that, you know, these people are kind of selected. Did for their stories for a reason. But like I said, it really kind of only plays out that way with Ramon and I guess Stella a little bit because she has so much in common with Sarah is kind of why hers is a little bit personal too, rather than they try to burn the book, it doesn’t burn, and when they pour it out of the burn barrel.

books,

which was my favorite line of the movie, but then they do some research. They go to the library of course, and do some research on microfilm.

Todd: This is great. The classic research at the library scene.

Craig: Yeah. The classic research montage. We get to in this movie bonus. And they find old newspaper articles about the family and whatnot, and they find out that there was a black woman who lived on that, whatever you want to call it in their estate.

And she had a daughter, and I don’t remember if the woman had been hungry. They had just fired her or what, but there was some suggestion that this black servant had taught Sarah some black magic, and that leads to another plot point coming down. But they also find out that within one year of Sarah hanging herself, the entire family disappeared and not moved away, just disappeared.

Like they didn’t sell their estate, they didn’t sell the mill. They just disappeared. And then. The book starts writing another story and it’s the red spot. I’ll let you take this one because you remember it so vividly. I think most people do. This is one of the more famous ones.

Todd: Oh yeah, yeah. Cause it’s gross because unlike the rest of the book, really, this is something that could conceivably happen.

I mean. Maybe, well

Craig: be pretty unlikely,

Todd: but not unlikely, but it’s not outside of the realm of possibility stuff like this does actually happen. Anyway, so she’s going back to play and it’s great. It’s 1968 she’s got the school play. It’s bye bye birdie. Of course. I just. I just imagined my mom watching this going, Oh my God.

I was like, Oh no, we did buy. So this is so 1968 anyway, she’s in bye bye birdie, and she’s in the dressing room, and of course this big pimple is really embarrassing her, and she can’t really cover it up with makeup. It’s just much bigger now. And so she goes into the back of the secluded bathroom and is in there, and she’s poking and pushing at her cheek, and it’s clearly super sore now.

It’s just grown. Quite big on her cheek. It’s really red. It’s got this little yellow spot in there. And at the same time, the other kids are seeing that. There’s another story showing up called the red spot, and they see her name in there. And so they’re racing of course, um, to the school. And as she pokes at it, this little blink, it looks like a hair.

Pops out in the middle. Oh God, this is so gross. And then she goes up like she’s tries to start pulling the hair out and when she lets go of the hair, it moves like a little leg. Suddenly a spider comes. Breaking out of it. And tons of spiders come flowing out of her face and all over there, just as the kids come in to the bathroom.

So she’s screaming, she’s got spiders pouring out of her face, and they’re going all over the place. This story was, uh, I can’t remember if it was called the red spot, but it was definitely in the book. And it’s just this idea that a spider had laid an egg in this woman’s cheek that suddenly hatched and all these tiny.

Funders came out and they get there in time. And part of what we’re seeing too is this shadow that creeps over. It’s kind of like the ghost of the sister who’s coming in to sort of influence people. And Stella starts to notice this, and so she, she kind of sees this and she also sees. I think a figure.

Craig: I didn’t notice that.

I thought she just saw the shadowy stuff, but regardless, she puts it together. She says, you know that that was her. She was here. She’s pulling all the strings. You know, she’s puppeteering all of this

Todd: and they haul the sister out. They haul Ruth out on a stretcher. I mean, she’s okay. You know, just her face is messed up.

So,

Craig: right, right. Later on, Stella says something like, well, we saved Ruth, and he’s like, you didn’t save anybody. She’s in the nut house for the rest of her life. So there are still implications that she’s not okay. But they did at least save her life, and then they do. So they found out about that black woman, and so they do some research into her and they know she had a daughter, so they.

Look for the daughter and they find her, and her name is Lulu. She’s played by Lorraine to sont who, um, has been in a lot of things. But, uh, she did one season of orange is the new black, and she was a bad bitch on that show.

Oh man. I, I get the impression that she’s kind of senile. She doesn’t really talk very much. Um. Stella picks up a music box and it plays this haunting theme that you hear throughout the score, who will be the next, but they tell Lulu that they have Sarah’s book and she asks to see it, and she repeats what Stella had said from the beginning.

Stories hurt, stories heal. You shouldn’t have taken the book. You made her angry. Stella says, well, did your mom or did you teach her black magic? And she’s like, no, it’s not magic. There’s no magic. It’s rage. It’s rage that gives her her strength and her power. When. Lulu kind of checks out her daughter or caretaker, whoever it is, comes in and choose the kids away.

But she just kind of casually mentions that Sarah did not hang herself in the home, that she died in a hospital. And so then more research.

So they go to the hospital and they try it again. Ask for the records and the nurse behind the desk is like, he, yeah, we don’t just give out records. Here’s a thing. You can apply and get them in six weeks or something. But a doctor says, Oh, I think we keep all those really old records in the red room. Um, and so they pretend to leave, but as they’re leaving.

Some a big group of doctors is coming out of the locked door to the interior of the hospital. So they sneak in and they go in and Chuck doesn’t want to go to the red room cause he’s scared of it, even though they find a sign that says the records and evaluation department, that’s where red comes from.

But he doesn’t want to go anyway. So they split up. Chuck goes off on his own and eventually starts getting chased around by staff. Stella and Ramon. Do find Sarah’s file, and they also find this old timey recording that’s like a wax roll. Then Ramon says, yeah, that Ramon says that they used before the days of vinyl records.

I’ll take his word for it.

Todd: No, it’s true.

Craig: I believe you, but it’s a recording of Sarah being interviewed by. Her brother, who I guess must have been a doctor at the hospital.

Todd: It’s a little convoluted. Yeah, but you’re right. Yeah. I guess the idea is that only a brother could kind of get away with what he was doing.

He’s delivering the electroshock treatments as well, while he’s doing this interview. So every now and then she just screams. It’s pretty creepy.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. And he’s asking her basically to confess. So what the town has been saying about her, that she has been killing these children with her stories and she says, I didn’t do it.

Tell the truth, Sarah. I always in those children, no, and she says, I tried to save them, but nobody would listen to me. You wouldn’t let me out. It was the water, the mercury from the mill. You poisoned the water. So we finally get. The truth of the story. I mean, it comes out here and then it’s reiterated later, but then we find out that what has happened is that the reason that this girl was locked up was not necessarily because she was evil or bad or an embarrassment to the family, but because somehow she had found out that the reason that children were disappearing is because they were being poisoned.

By mercury from the family mill. And she had apparently told somebody as her brother continues to, uh, torture her on the recording, her voice changes and becomes more monstrous or demonic. She. Says, all right, I’ll tell you what you want to hear. And at that point, it becomes unclear if she’s talking to the brother or if she’s talking to Ramon and Stella because she starts telling a story and the story starts filling in in the book, and it’s Chuck’s story and it’s called the red room.

And God, this one, this one is so simple, like there’s really not much to the story, but I still find it. It was so frightening. I was just really impressed by how genuinely frightening the way that they presented these images. It was really scary. So his story basically is everything goes red in the hospital, which there could be a logical explanation for it because the staff does know that there are these intruders in there, so they could be on high alert or whatever, but everything goes red.

And Chuck is running through these hallways until eventually at the end of one of these hallways, he sees this monstrous, gross, grotesque blob woman don’t even know how to

Todd: describe a creepy smile on her face.

Craig: Yeah. And it’s not, it’s not like she’s just an obese woman. She’s, she’s monstrous. Like her, her head is too big and her face is too big and too flat, and she just has this unmoving grin on her face and every time he turns to try to run away from her and run down another hall, she’s there at the end of every hall.

And it’s not as though she’s just reappearing. It’s just that she is everywhere at the same time, like there’s many of them. Or, and he can’t escape. And the tension here is great too, because you know, he’ll find himself at like a four way intersection and she’ll be in three of the hallways. And so he only has the option to run down the one, but he’ll get a little bit down that way and she’ll appear down that way too.

And eventually. He just gets cornered at one of those intersections and she just like envelops him in a hug and then literally envelops him into her body and then he’s gone. This is two of the main characters, you know, like the good guys. Um, so far that, I mean, and it’s not like Ruth was a bad guy, but you know, she kind of had the popular girl thing going for her or whatever.

But these are two of your outcast characters who are supposed to be the heroes of the movie and they’re gone. It’s just a Stella and Ramon left.

Todd: You know, I think there’s some elements of this movie that are not fully explored that make it clear to me that they’re setting us up for sequel. We get so much.

Almost a little unnecessary backstory about some of these characters. And there’s kind of an interesting relationship between Stella and her dad. And Stella is clearly haunted by the fact that her, her mother left, and she doesn’t really understand or know why. And her dad’s a little distant, but they still have a very loving relationship, but he just doesn’t really know what to do with her.

Anyway, she comes home and has a moment with him. Um, but it’s also vote night. So everything’s kind of coming to a head as the election is being tallied, uh, for Nixon. And Ramon is cornered by the cops as well as Stella because at the, they’re, they’re caught, I think at the hospital. And they’re pulled in to the police station.

The police men reveals that Ramon is a draft Dodger. That’s why he’s kind of new in town. That’s why he’s being so cagey. And of course he’s a bit racist to him as well, and he decides he’s going to lock them up in the jail. So he puts them both in the jail. It’s only him and the dog in there. The lights start going out.

The guy opens up this book that he’s confiscated from them and sees that a story. Uh, is on there, called me Ty DOE, T Walker. They’re screaming like, what’s the story? What’s the story? Don’t do whatever, blah, blah, blah. In the meantime, he hears a noise. The dog is looking at the fireplace. It’s in this police station.

Okay. I guess it’s an older police station. We’ll go with that. It’s convenient for the story though. The dog just is. Standing there staring at this fireplace like there’s something there, and pretty soon there’s some movements and motion and a severed head, just like in the story, completely drops down this fireplace and rolls over and opens his eyes and has this huge grin on his face and goes, me,

Craig: Ty Doty Walker.

Todd: Which is nonsense. And does the dog just fall over or does the dog leave? What is the, what happens? It runs away. It runs away, right.

Craig: I just ran off

Todd: this story. I went,

Craig: okay.

Todd: Yeah, I know you’re really concerned about that. I went back, I read the story in the book and it’s a weird ass. The story about a guy who goes to a haunted house with his dog and this head falls, the dog starts replying like the dog suddenly starts talking and replying to this, this voice that’s coming and when the head finally falls down and says that the dog dies a fright,

Craig: no,

Todd: but then soon after the head, a whole bunch of other limbs fall down to, and this is gross.

You know, I mean, these big disgusting gross limbs and you see the stumps and everything, uh, and the torso comes down too, and everything kind of crawls together and get sucked together into this. Not quite right. Giant man creature. It’s just like the limbs came together just a little off. In every which way it can kind of stand up, but it almost looks like its torso is on backwards and its head is halfway the wrong direction.

Uh, and he starts coming at the cop and the cop screams, and I think he gets the cop, doesn’t he.

Craig: He does. He breaks his neck snaps and it’s brutal. Yeah. And, and you, you see it, you hear it. I know. We keep saying, you know, how scary these things are. What sets it apart for me from other movies targeted at younger audiences.

Is that these effects look like they could have been lifted out of any serious horror movie made for adults. It’s not toned down at all. You know, this, this creepy guy. Could have, you know, come right out of the walking dead or any other number of movies targeted towards adults. It just, I don’t know. I don’t know exactly how to put my finger on it, but usually there’s just something that’s a little bit maybe more fantastical and a little bit less real looking.

Right. It’s targeted towards kids

Todd: nowadays. But we’ve also talked about how they never used to be that way. Right. And people, I mean, this is kind of a throwback to that really. I mean, this is fulfilling everything we said. Movies should be right now, not toned down so much for kids. So in that respect, it’s,

Craig: and maybe that’s why I’m so impressed because you’re right, we have said that many times, longing for the good old days when they didn’t tone things down for kids as much as they do today.

Um, so, you know, great, good job. Filmmakers. Thanks for listening to our suggestions, but the jangling.

Todd: Thanks Greg.

Craig: The Jangli man goes after Ramon. This is Ramon story, and the reason I said the whole, the, the book, uh, you don’t read the book. The book reads you. That applies to him because this jangly man is taunting him, calling him a coward.

And that’s really playing on his fears because he explains that he didn’t want to go to Vietnam because his brother. You know, just days before he got drafted, his brother had been sent home from Vietnam in pieces and uh, he was scared. And so this thing is praying on his fears and insecurities

Todd: and made of pieces.

Craig: Yeah, yeah. Right. This, the guy, you know, it’s really effective. The CGI looks really good. Again, it’s really dark, which plays in its favor, but, um, it looks really good. And the guy is. Played by a professional contortionists too, I guess was on America’s got talent. And so a lot of his movement is practical.

They just kinda gussy them up in the face and stuff with the CGI, he starts coming through the bars, but somehow Stella manages to get them out and they run out. And Ramon, tell Stella, you need to get to the house, the big scary house and take care of this with Sarah. You’ve got to get her to stop. Doing this.

Um, he says, aye, we need to split up because the stories don’t stop. This guy is not going to stop coming after me. And he’s right. So they do split up. She runs off towards the house, he steals a cop car, you think gets away. But then it turns out the jangly man is on the roof and you know, there’s a whole sequence where he’s driving around trying to.

Throw this monster off of the car. Um, eventually he gets it on the front, like on the bumper, and he smashes it into a truck. And it falls apart, which I thought meant it was dead, but apparently it just fell apart so that it could get out of there and reassemble and it keeps coming after him. And so then he heads towards the house too.

Meanwhile, Sarah is there and her story has begun and her story is the haunted house, and basically what her story is, is she. Is experiencing what Sarah went through in that house, and even though it’s not supernatural, it’s just as terrifying as the rest of the stories. It’s horrible. I mean, basically what it comes down to is that she was just terribly abused by her family, especially once she learned their secret and she was a.

Threats and them, you know, they kept her locked up, they chased her, they beat her. And Stella is kind of reliving all of this until she, because I guess the apparitions or whatever think that I’m Stella is Sarah. And so they capture her and throw her in the basement and lock her in the basement. And that’s where, you know.

The resolution finally comes. I thought it was fairly satisfying.

Todd: It was. There’s some meat touches to to this whole sequence because both Sarah and Ramona are in the house, but it’s like they’re an alternate dimensions or alternate timeline. Whereas, you know, to Sarah, obviously the whole family’s there and everything’s fresh and new, and to Ramon, he’s still being chased.

By this jangly man, and they’re in a lot of the same locations, sometimes standing in exactly the same spot, and he’ll get like a chill, like Sarah, this is like Sarah’s ghost from the past. Or, um, uh, Stella’s ghost from the past coming. And he even gets under a table and finds a pair of glasses that are broken that are clearly.

Stella’s, but they look like they’d been there forever. And then shortly after that we see a sequence where Stella’s under that table and this family drags her out and the glasses get left behind and stepped on. I mean, those are just really nice little implications there, you know, of time travel and kind of the supernatural thing.

But yeah, you’re right. So she gets thrown in there and he’s still being pursued by the man, and he basically just yells at her, tell her the truth. Stella is in Sarah’s room, and Sarah appears. She materializes in front of her and she stands up and she starts slowly walking towards her and she looks pretty creepy and whatnot.

But Sarah is basically telling her, look, I can tell the truth about you. I can write your story. You know, the way it should be written, but this rage has to stop. You know, it’s basically, it’s basically her message.

Craig: What’s your family did to you. But they said that’s on them. What do you do.

Todd: That apparently gets to Sarah. She starts crying a little bit. Tears are showing from her eyes. She didn’t say anything, but she hands a pen over to her and tells her to use your blood. And so Sarah. I’m sorry. Stella pokes herself with this pen to get her blood on it and she starts writing Sarah’s true story, and that is enough, I think, to make the monster go away.

I think Sarah Bass basically just calls off the dogs and she disappears again. At that point I thought, okay, that means the whole spell is broken. All the kids are going to come out of the woodwork and everybody’s going to join up and, and you know, it was all just a terrible nightmare. That’s over a and, and that didn’t happen.

And I was pretty surprised at that part. I really expected this. Yeah. The spell is broken now. Everybody comes back and that did not happen at all. Ruth comes back though, right?

Craig: Yeah. Basically we go back to that monologue from the beginning about stories, hurt, stories heal. If you tell them long, tell them enough times they become real or something like that.

Um. And so she does. She writes Sarah story, I think it gets published in her school newspaper or something. She wins some sort of award for it or something. Ramon goes off to war and Stella in her closing monologue vows, she says, Chuck and Augie are still gone, but I know that I can get them back. I know the book has the power to bring them back and we’re going to bring them back and then you see she’s in a car.

I think. With her dad, I don’t remember. But you see that Ruth is also in the back too, and her face is kind of messed up, but she smiles. So I think the indication is that she’s better. Um, and that’s where it ends. And I think you’re right. I think they probably were setting it up for a potential sequel.

And so, you know, maybe Chuck and Augie will live on one day, but not in this movie.

Todd: It says something in part as they drive away. Um, but she’s got the book in her lap and you’ll hear her monologue and she says something like, uh, I know that, uh, that I can get my friends back. And the secret is in this book, I just need to find it.

And so, right. I mean, that’s pretty clearly SQL bait. And apparently SQL is, was announced that it would be, was in development, but we haven’t really heard anything clear about it yet. And probably any movement on that would have happened the beginning of this year. And. As you, we know a lot of things that were supposed to happen beginning of this year, put on hold.

So yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see if it happens, but it’s set up for one. I liked the movie. I didn’t, it wasn’t the best thing I’d ever seen. Actually, I felt a lot about this movie the same way I felt for the Guillermo Del Toro. Re directed movie that we were just talking about about, uh, don’t be afraid of the dark or whatever.

I thought it was fine. A little more kiddish. It followed the structure and general theme of a kid’s movie, although it did have that edge, like we talked about, and generally was scary but not so scary that I was. Terribly frightened, but it did subvert my expectations by not everything just being okay at the end.

So it was a nice movie. I, you know, especially good for kids, maybe for families, little older kids. I don’t know if I’ll watch it again. I liked the tying in thematically and visually with the books. I thought that was nice. And like I said earlier, I really liked the fact that it didn’t follow that standard anthology kind of thing, but actually had more of an more of a reason for the stories and a source for the stories.

Yeah. So, yeah, it’ll be interesting to see if they do have a sequel where it goes, because presumably Sarah’s pacified, so I don’t know what she’s going to end up doing with that book or how more stories are going to come out of it. But, uh,

Craig: yeah. We’ll see. Yeah. I, I basically feel the same way. It’s not like my favorite movie ever, but I thought overall it was, it was really well done.

Yeah. Um, the, the, the young actors were good, uh, and, and endearing, and I thought that visually it was really. Cool to look at. I mean, there, there were a lot of really pretty like outdoor shots and in broad daylight. Um, and then, you know, in the, it was never so dark that I couldn’t see what was going on, but it was dark enough to kind of make the CGI not look so cartoonish.

I thought the effects were good. I thought, uh, like you said, it’s not like I was cowering under my blanket or anything, but I was just kinda surprised. Like, wow, yeah, this is. Pretty legit, scary stuff. So I think overall it was a success. Uh, and I would recommend it, you know, if you were a parent, you would have to make that judgment call on your own.

Cause it is pretty dark, uh, in places I don’t

Todd: hold us responsible for this. Right?

Craig: Um, but you know, if your kid’s into this kind of thing and they understand that it’s just make believe and stuff, I do think it would be a fun family movie if that’s what your kids into. But I would recommend that even just to any horror fan.

Uh, I think it’s a good movie. Not, again, not my favorite, but a good solid movie worth, worth at least one viewing.

Todd: Well, thank you so much, Frank and Karthik or recommended to us. It was a joy to watch and be able to talk about if you have any requests you can find us online. Like I said, write us a message and also go to our YouTube channel, see if you can get some more people to subscribe to that so we can do some more fun things with that as well.

Please share this podcast with some friends. We are recording a few more episodes than normal each week. The goal is for me to just be able to put out maybe an extra episode every once or twice just to make up for those weeks where we’ve been a little late and we know that a lot of you are maybe at home right now.

Looking for entertainment. So we want to be able to fill that void for you in our very small way that we can. So until next time, I’m Todd

Craig: and I’m Craig

Todd: with two guys and a chainsaw.

Thanks to Dave for recommending this hilarious, so-bad-it’s-good movie as we sit at home in isolation. We’re especially excited to be watching the film where Linnea Quigley got her start (and even discussed the process it with us in an earlier episode).

Graduation Day (1981)

Episode 212, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of two guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: While we are continuing with requests. And today’s request was a nice, fun eighties slasher movie during the height of the slasher movie craze where they were coming at us in droves, love, love, love to do these movies, good or bad on this show. And uh, thanks to Dave for putting this in front of us.

The movie is called Graduation Day and it was actually made in 1981. Oh gosh, this this year. I mean, you had the burning, you had this, you had Blood Rage as well, which was one of my favorites. Intruder was like a year after this Evil Dead was a couple years before this. I think 1979 I mean, this is the time for these.

Sort of carbon copies slash or films that just came out in droves and cashed in big time. I mean, this movie was shot on a budget of $250,000 it’s not even a particularly great movie, but he had grossed 25 million. By the time it was out of the females. Can you believe that this movie,

Craig: I mean, I know I could

Todd: make movies at the time that this this was going on, I would have making them left and right, and then above all odds.

There are several famous people in this movie, early work of theirs, so crazy. So it’s, I’m really looking forward actually to talk about this movie today. Uh, but I had never really heard of it before or probably passed it on the, on the shelves. Definitely hadn’t seen it. But it is available on Amazon prime right now for free in case you want to watch it, which is where we watched it.

Craig, had you seen this before? We watched it for this podcast?

Craig: No. And gosh, I don’t know if I’m surprised that I hadn’t seen it

Todd: cause

Craig: this is right. You know, this is right up our alley. The, you know, we watch these movies all the time. We grew up with them. Um, and you and I are very fond of. You know, like theme type stuff.

So I’m surprised that we haven’t done this in the spring for graduation season before. Um, but, uh, it’s interesting for sure. It’s surprising you said how much money it made. It’s surprising that it made so much money. For one, because like you said, it was kind of at the peak or maybe even a little bit on the downside of, well, that’s not really fair cause, um, I guess all through the 80s, uh, but critics were getting a little bit tired of the slasher formula already, even in 1981.

And so it wasn’t, it did not get any critical love at all. Um, and I read that, uh, I don’t remember. Who it was, whether it was the director of the producer who, um, actually went to theaters to ensure that the theaters were actually showing previews for this movie, um, because they wanted to make sure that it was really getting out there.

But no, I, I had never seen it. I’d never really heard of it. Uh, I was kind of excited going in because it was, you know, kind of this old slasher and I enjoy those and I thought it would be a lot of fun. It, I don’t know. What did you think? I mean, you said you’re excited to talk about it. I’m, I’m excited to talk about it too, but I, I can’t say that I loved it.

Really.

Todd: I can’t say I loved it either, but I think there’s some really interesting elements to this movie. I think it’s made with a lot more care and thought than a lot of these films were made. You know, we see some just utter garbage that. Just like the cinematography is pretty lousy. The editing’s pretty lousy.

The acting is always lousy. The script is something that you know, you’ve, you’ve seen a hundred times. They almost just kind of rewrite the same story for a different, a different movie. And this movie has a lot of that in it, except I thought the editing was a little inspired. The use of music was very interesting.

For better, for worse. There were some nice transitions. Uh, in some of the, between some of the scenes and, uh, I could see most everything that was going on, you know, it wasn’t muddy or dark or weird and a lot of spots. And there were moments where the special effects, the practical effects worked for me and other moments where they were just laughably bad.

Yeah. So was, it was considerably uneven. I felt even at an hour and a half, it was. Still felt really long, like this movie didn’t know how to end itself. But, uh, yeah. And at the end of the day, like, I dunno man, like the whole mystery of who the killer, I don’t know. There, there are a lot of problems with it, let’s put it that way.

But. It stood out in a few small ways that at least kind of kept me interested as a guy who ends up seeing so many of these week after week, you’ve got to find something, you know? Oh yeah, that’s unique. And I found enough unique in here that kinda, that kept me watching the screen. But I don’t know if I would’ve said the same thing in 1981 you know?

Craig: Yeah, yeah. I mean, there were definitely things that I enjoyed about it. Absolutely. First of all, our friend Linnea Quigley,

Todd: this was kind of her big break roll, wasn’t it? I mean, this was, she’s in a couple movies before

Craig: she talked to us about it.

Todd: Yeah, I remember cause she was cast as one of the girls after the girl who originally auditioned for it didn’t want to take her top off.

Craig: Right, right. And she told us that.

Todd: Yeah. And latte, quickly go back and listen to that episode. We don’t want to spoil it all for you. Cause we are really excited about the fact that we got to talk to Linnea Quigley. But you know, to make a long story short, she doesn’t mind popping her top off for a movie.

And I guess she had gotten the hint that you’d never say no to nudity. That got her to the part and that really kind of rough. Then she, you know. Then she got some plastic surgery and monitor top of a lot after that.

Craig: Uh, it’s funny cause you’ve said stuff about her having surgery before and I’m like, no, she’s just really cute.

Um, I barely recognized her in this, like had I not, had I not known it was her, I’m not sure that I would have figured it out. She does have a really distinctive voice and I, I, I did recognize her voice, but I think it would have taken me a while to figure it out just because she’s very, very young. And fresh faced and this really screwed up tissue.

You’re going to be lucky if you graduate. I’m going to graduate. What you want? You didn’t even go to class half of the time. I know, but that’s cool. I talked to Mr. Robertson, you know he doesn’t care. I’m going to graduate high girl. Send me screwed. Is it true that you screwed the ones at sacred heart?

Huh? Have you. What do I look like? Calculators. No, but you know, I just wondered everyone. Every one of them should leaders, POM POM, girls. You know, Nancy, you go back a long ways. First time I met her.

Todd: So

Craig: you did do it with her. I had to teach her a little bit. She’s already,

she’s my best friend and, and she plays a small role, but I enjoyed her. Uh, and just having made that one very, very brief personal connection with her, it was a really cool to see her. Um, and then, uh, another very young. Fresh faced. Vanna white is in the movie.

Todd: The back of her head is in the movie more than her face.

But yeah, you’re right.

Craig: It’s funny because again, I’m not positive. I would have recognized her either because she’s so young, but I definitely did recognize her voice. What was funny to me about all of the scenes that she was in was she always appeared with another girl, and it seemed to me. That they didn’t have any written lines like it seemed to me that they were like just act bubbly and goofy, and so they had the silliest, silliest lines.

Like at one point she’s like, you scared me so bad. I peed my pants. The other girls like you did, and she’s like, no, not really. Then they’re like. Yeah, you did. I can see it like these are the lines.

Todd: Like

Craig: it was fun. That was pretty hilarious. Um, so little things like that I liked my biggest problem. With the movie, I think was the writing of the script.

It really kind of irritated me because it sets up this a murder mystery, and I’ll try to say this without totally blowing the ending before we get there. But okay, so it starts out at. Um, a track meet that also features gymnastics like, Hmm. Is that, was that a thing? Like, did people do gymnastics at track meets?

Todd: It just felt like they had a song? Well, first of all, the opening is awesome. I loved the opening. There’s like this cool, groovy seventies, like. Like rapid pace song and they let the whole freaking song play and they’re editing really fast cuts of this track need and these people in the crowd. And I just felt like after a while there were only so many shots you can get of a crowd cheering and somebody running around the track and a coach yelling at them to go faster, that they just had to cut in some footage from gymnastics.

That was how I read it.

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe they just happened to have an actress who could like do a bar, like a parallel bar scene, and so they’re like, well, why not? Let’s do it. I don’t know. Um, but anyway, so. This big track meet apparently, and this girl, her name ends up being, Laura, is like winning the race and the coach is yelling at her and he’s got a stopwatch and he’s like, you have to get under 30 seconds.

And she’s running so hard. And, um. It was also funny because this girl was, she looked like she was maybe like five, four, and she clearly could not run as fast as everybody else in this scene. And so, like, they had to do really tricky things with the editing to make it look like she could actually run faster than these other people.

But anyway, um, she does, she, she, she wins and she makes it under, or right at 30 seconds or whatever, but then she immediately dropped it. Dead and, uh, everybody is shocked and they explain later that I guess she had a blood clot in her brain or, or an aneurysm or something, but she dies and then it jumps to, I don’t know, sometime later when her sister and who is played by patch McKinsey, should I know who that is.

Um, she’s somebody, I don’t know.

Todd: She was in ER for a handful of episodes or something. That’s, I mean, she’s done some things, but not a lot, but she’s been on

Craig: here, I don’t know. Yeah, the name sounded familiar, but whatever. Anyway, she shows up. Um, and then right away we see another young jogger running in the.

Forest or the park or something. This young jogger female jogger is killed by somebody in a sweatsuit with a stopwatch, who’s also like, you know, doing the whole 30 seconds thing. And then that’s the setup. Like, okay, so you’ve got this killer in a sweatsuit with a stopwatch killing. What turns out to be the other people on the track team, and that’s the big mystery.

What irritated me about the movie is that they set up so many ridiculous red herrings. That

Todd: transparent.

Craig: Yeah. Like at one point when Anne goes home to her mom and her mean stepdad or whatever, she unpacks her suitcase and there’s black gloves and. Like sweats, a sweatsuit in there or something. And then later, other people also have knives and stopwatches and sweatpants and

Todd: like,

Craig: so there are all these red herrings.

And as it turns out, again, without trying to be too spoiler-y. You meet the killer very early in the movie and then the killer disappears for the rest of the movie until the very end.

Todd: Yeah. That character existed and you, right. You’re going to be spending a lot of time with that character in the beginning of the movie, like to the point where I thought were there a few scenes in the middle that ended up getting edited out at some point, but that character is not the only one.

Who goes missing for most of the movie ends up at the end. So even still, you’ve got like three or four people to choose from. Yeah. Before we go too far into this, I want to talk just briefly about the male gaze and feminism and stuff like that, because I thought that this movie, one thing that set it apart from the other a slash or movies of the time was it, it had pretty strong.

Female characters and pretty worthless male characters. Now, that’s not to say that it’s not exploitative and sexist in many parts, but. I love that scene where she’s in the car with the truck driver and

Craig: we don’t even see,

Todd: yeah, we don’t even see her face for awhile, which was a pretty smart move. He’s just talking to this girl and she’s not responding because he’s being just too chatty and eventually kind of lecherous.

Uh, but we see her legs like he’s looking down at her legs, like sets. The only thing that he’s really. Paying attention to in the car and she’s wearing a skirt and there is a like a Navy hat on there, like she’s in the Navy and he makes some comment that’s like,

Craig: you were read about those two Navy girls, Bannon, the San Diego

Todd: who was in all the papers

Craig: I hear.

They were a couple of real Lesbos.

Todd: He ends up making some comment to her and, uh, puts his hand on her leg and tries to kind of move it up her skirt. And when she pushes it away, we still don’t see her face when she pushes it away. Hey, let’s come on babe. I’m a taxpayer, which is horrible. You’re not a lesbian to Aria.

And finally she gets them to stop the truck. And we see her face for the first time when she gets out. But one of the first things you see in this movie after seeing a young woman dropped dead, is a strong woman standing up for herself to a lecherous pig. These two scenes, you know, the quick cutting and the kind of the excitement with the music of that first one.

And then that aspect of the second one, just something I was . Definitely not expecting a from a movie in this era. Those were things that kind of made me sit up and take notice. And so I was trying to kind of take, take, like I had a little chart going, you know, of other points. They were scoring a little bit for strong females, and there were a few, and I’m sure we’ll talk about it.

Craig: Well, all of the women were far more interesting than the men. The men were all just kind of bumbling oafs

Todd: or horrible people. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig: And that’s, that’s not to say that the women were all rocket scientists. They certainly weren’t, but they were at least more interesting characters. So, okay. So, uh, you know, where do we go from there?

Cause that’s the thing, like I feel like it’s a lot of scenes of people talking to each other. A lot of. Like he hears introducing some red herrings, like, okay, so Anne goes home and her mom seems kind of nice, but kind of put upon, and then she has this jerk stepdad named Ronald, um, who confronts her right away and is like, I don’t know why you get to accept your sister’s award at graduation.

That should have been me. I was the one that practically raised her. And he calls her a big mouse, self-centered bitch.

Todd: Calm

Craig: down.

Todd: She just walked in the door. Come on.

Craig: Oh God. Then I mean, I can go through the plot points, but then we’re in the locker room and it’s a killer POV, and, uh, there’s the, the killer takes a picture out of a locker and it’s the track picture. And Laura’s . Faces already crossed out, and then they cross out the other girl that just got killed in the forest.

And so it’s just this big setup like, okay, I get it. Somebody’s taken out the track team.

Todd: Yeah. And, and that’s one of the most cliche things about this movie, down to the kilo killer POV shots with the gloves on, all borrowed from Glo pictures, but used heavily in these eighties movies here. Uh, and then the very obvious, like we, the audience know.

Who the next, you know, victims are going to be basically, because the killer is putting a big frickin red X over a picture that I guess he tucks away in the locker and then pulls out again every now and that just have come right track. You know, it’s all really, really silly, but it does definitely follow those tropes.

I, there are times when you kind of like to watch a movie that’s following those tropes, right? Yeah. I know. I recognize this. I see what’s going on. So that didn’t bother me too much just because every movie at this time pretty much did that. Yeah. I thought that the Kilz for the most part were really well, like stylishly filmed, almost everything is a sword or a knife.

Everything’s like a blade. But at some point there’s like a sword and a fencing sword. So unlike a lot of movies where the killer usually just kinda has only one weapon. Or, or the methods of killer, like so drastically different, like, uh, you know, boiling water from a kitchen on one person, a bunch of killer bees in the bathroom, or you know, on another, just sort of, depending on what’s going to get to each of these people.

I don’t know if the fencing swords that you find in a school are really. Sharp enough that you can stab a person with it. But that’s what happens in one scene.

Craig: No, they don’t.

Todd: They don’t have points. Right.

Craig: The fencing foils don’t, they don’t even have a sharp point. No, they’re dull at the end. At least, you know, from my vast experience with fencing, you know, that’s my understanding.

Like you’re not actually. Trying to stab people, but again, you know, like it’s, it’s just all of these coincidences, like, okay, so it’s clearly a killer POV watching this girl, her name ends up being Sally. She’s a walking in the woods and the killer is watching, and then she bumps into Annie who is . Or an excuse me, who is now out of her uniform, and I just have written down bumps into Annie looking good, acting weird, like

She looks real pretty, but she’s acting weird. What’s going on? Is she the killer? I mean, that’s what it seems like it would be suggesting. It also make, you know, like she comes in from out of town, it’s her sister that died. Like if anybody has motive. It would be her. And so they take advantage of that right away.

Todd: Oh, she’s in almost every scene in the beginning and it gets kind of boring, right? Cause we’re just sort of following her around town and they’re having a graduation rehearsal and that seems pretty boring. And then she pops in and it’s like Sally whispers, that’s the one I saw in the, in the woods. And then later she goes over to Kevin’s house and Kevin is the boyfriend of, um, well the former boyfriend, I guess, or Laura, uh, who dies and he’s got this weird ass house where.

I don’t know if they like stockpile art supplies or something. And then he’s got this grandmother who just sits in front of a static screen and yells at it. And that was interesting because she didn’t need to be there.

Craig: Interesting. In that it amounts to nothing. Like that’s, that’s my big problem. Like there are all of these things that a V the amount, nothing like at the end of the movie.

Again, it’s going to get a little spoiler-y. I apologize, but by the end of the movie, I wondered why was the character of an even in this movie like as, except for to like throw suspicion on her. There’s no reason for her to be there.  all of the events of the movie could have played out in her absence.

Like she’s only there. As a mislead. And that frustrates me.

Todd: Yeah. And we spent so much time with her in the beginning, the movies really trying to build this sympathy for Laura. And you think kind of for Laura’s family, I mean, she’s come home from Guam. Right, right. Be here for this graduation in the wake of this tragedy.

Her mother’s trying to reassure her, her stepdad has this kind of issue. He’s clearly dealing with some trauma. She goes over to Kevin’s house and he’s put together a little flip book, uh, you know, a photos from her and they have, you know, exchange words and have this kind of sweet talk and she gives him.

The necklace that she was going to give her, and that gets laid down on a photograph and there’s a shot of that and all of these little things. You’re right. They seem like they’re being set up to be significant,

Craig: or at least it,

Todd: there’s this kind of family drama and this kind of shadow that’s supposedly hanging over everybody about Laura being dead.

Now. We all know Laura collapsed. On the track field. Nobody shot her, nobody killed her. So we’re not starting out with a mystery right away. And that’s maybe, I think a big failing of the movie is not only are we not starting out with the mystery right away, but they’re trying to make a mystery out of it.

Like at one point before she disappears for quite a while. Uh, Anne confronts the track coach who’s a Dick, who just yells and screams at the girls and stuff all the time, and she makes this absurd assertion that everybody knows that he killed her. I guess because he pushed her so hard that she got a blood clot that’s at least a third of the way into the movie.

But nobody really takes it seriously. So the main mystery we have going this whole time, if you can call it, is who is the killer. But that’s only a mystery for us because until like the last 10 minutes, nobody else knows there’s even a killer. Nobody knows people are being killed, right? These kids are just disappearing.

And. Nobody’s finding the bodies and nobody’s saying anything about it. There’s not even like, Oh, where’s Sally? She was supposed to come here today. You know, where’s Jim? It’s only like the last 15 minutes that, I’m sorry, it’s the last 30 minutes that a cop shows up and is like, ah, you know, I’ve been called by some parents.

They said that a bunch of kids are missing and. Yeah. The principal’s like, yeah, I know. I realized they were all members of the same track team. Two parents had been calling me about it too. Uh, yeah. You know? Well, it’s just like, I just want to get the things done, write my report and get outta here.

They’re probably kids just playing around. Yeah. I don’t even know why the parents are upset about it. They’re like, what?

Craig: What?

Todd: What? Yeah.

Craig: Well, yeah. And, and the, the principal is just like, Oh. They’re not going to miss graduation. Don’t worry about it. They’ll turn up it’s graduation day. Um, yeah, and they’re, they, there are, you know, after the first girl gets killed, there’s a pointless scene where they’re like taking the track photo and that girl doesn’t show up.

And everybody’s like, no, we don’t want to take the picture without her and the coach. Like, too bad we’re doing it anyway. So they kind of notice that people are missing. And especially after that party, when like, I don’t know, four or five people get killed. Um, yeah, parents start calling and stuff, but it doesn’t, it doesn’t seem high stakes.

Uh. Point. No.

Todd: And nobody’s walking around nervous. Right? It’s not scream.

Craig: No, no. Yeah. They, nobody jumps to the conclusion, Oh, somebody must be killing everybody, which I guess you probably wouldn’t, but just a little weird. Like it’s all these red herring things that just drive me nuts. Like when, uh, Anne is at, uh, Kevin, is that his name?

Yeah. When she’s at his house. Um, and there’s that photo album. Maybe this was just like a logistics things, but it drove me crazy. That was a full photo album of the last 30 seconds of her life. Like

Todd: what,

Craig: who is taking all of these pictures and why would you want to commemorate this? Like I was waiting for the last picture to be like her dead body on the track.

Todd: True. That’s a very good, so

Craig: weird and random. And then just lots of weirdo, uh, ran. Okay. So, uh, Sally gets stocked in the locker room again and, and that’s when Vanna white piece, you are out to get out of here. This girl wacko.

There’s a weird scene and this happens a couple of times where. The Sally. Okay. So I guess a reporter has come to do a story. No.

Todd: Sally or no, no, no, no. I think this is, I’m the yearbook photographer, isn’t it? The same guy who was taking the track, I don’t know. And all that stuff. That’s what I thought it was,

Craig: I guess.

Okay. So anyway, a photographer and he’s there to take a picture of . Her doing her uneven bars routine or whatever. Well, she keeps falling. Well, one of the, the reason that she’s falling is because she keeps having these weird, like flashbacks. Like I didn’t even understand was she just like traumatized by the fact that this girl collapsed and died.

And there’s another part later where somebody else has these weird stylistic flashbacks and I’m like, I didn’t even get it.

Todd: It’s what is happening. I thought it was cute and clever, and that’s how I interpreted at first, like she’s flashing back to the track and to her collapsed and I thought, Oh, that’s interesting.

Like she can’t, because she’s an athlete, a fellow athlete died and now it’s affecting her performance. She can’t concentrate because this keeps coming up to her except. Some of the flashes that come through are one of the other girl’s murder, and so that didn’t make sense

Craig: anymore like it. She doesn’t even know about,

Todd: she doesn’t even know about it, let alone did she see the body or it happened.

So that didn’t make any sense. I liked that scene just because we got a good, I don’t know, six or seven minutes. We got to watch her whole fricking routine.

Craig: It was so long.

Todd: They’re padding for time clearly, but the coach is standing there and he’s looking up at her, and after a while up to too long, actually, he starts like licking his lips and kind of looking at her.

Leslie and the photographer also notices it and as a little creeped out by it. But doesn’t do anything about it. Right? And everybody just goes along their Merry way. And then Sally goes into the women’s locker room by herself, just

Craig: shave her legs in the sink.

Why? I mean, it’s a locker room. I’m sure there are showers in there, but I guess that’s sexy.

Todd: Yeah. I felt like it was one of those, it was a notch against the, you know, the feminist thing called, I’m not going to argue that this is a feminist film, trust me, but it’s definitely a notch down a against the film as far as, I felt like the only reason she was shaving her legs in there, uh, was just so we could see her legs a little bit more.

Craig: Yeah,

Todd: definitely. She gets stabbed. She’s the one that gets stabbed with the of the

Craig: fence fencing foil. Right. And then it cuts to a totally random scene of this guy in like a leisure suit. Like it turns out, I guess that he’s the music teacher. I think. Mr. Roberts and he’s like doing this performance. It’s so funny, like he’s sitting at the piano and playing this song and these two high school girls are fawning over him.

Like he’s Paul McCartney or something, and he’s talking, he’s talking about how, Oh, you know, I, I had to leave the business. And they’re like, it’s so ridiculous. He’s not. In any way attractive. Like he looks like he stepped right out of like a porno from the late seventies or something. Even like mustache.

Maybe I’m, maybe that’s just how I projected him in my mind. I don’t

Todd: know.

Craig: He was just. Gross.

Todd: Yeah. He didn’t seem to be the kind of guy who’d be terribly interested in girls. Let’s just put it that way. Well, true. So bats rang a little untrue when one, when limited Quigley, uh, in her first scene in the movie, I think, right.

We didn’t see her earlier.

Craig: Well, okay. We didn’t see her earlier because the other girl was still playing her. Like, that’s the, I guess so the original girl. Who wouldn’t show her boobies. They tried as much as they could to cut around her in the opening scenes, but she’s there and then she’s then now replaced by Linnea Quigley and again, spoiler alert, later on, Linea quickly gets.

Killed and she gets decapitated I think. And then in the big fines, the bodies scene, which were in all of the slashers in the last 10 minutes, where the final girl is running around and happens upon all of the bodies that have been piled up for the whole movie. Um, you see this character’s severed head, but it’s not the, they quickly his head, it’s the other girl’s head.

Yeah. They had already shot that scene.

Todd: You’re like, who’s that?

It’s so funny.

Craig: It’s perfect. Linnea Quigley from the 80s. It’s exactly what I want from her.

Todd: She basically set her tone with this movie, I think, because this is her character on every film thereafter to varying degrees. Right. She comes in, she sits down and she’s already slinking in a, and the other girls leave and she turns around and locks the door and sits down next to this guy and asks him, Oh, you know, I want to talk about my grade, you know, of course I need to make sure I get a good grade.

I don’t know, in music class to graduate. He’s like, Oh, well, I don’t know if that’s going to be appropriate because whatever. And she like takes his glasses off and he’s like, Oh, ha ha. You know, um, um, ah. Oh. And then she just pops open her top and pushes his face right down between her very natural boobs and, uh, almost pulls his, his to pay off in the process.

Did you notice that

his hair makes a very dramatic shift back as she.

Craig: And then that’s hilarious.

Todd: Which sets up this bizarre scene that I have no idea why it was there, except again to pad for time. There’s a scene in between where the secretary goes into the principal’s office and the principal wants

Craig: a . That’s her name. Her name is Blondie,

Todd: and. Actually, I liked her character.

She was a cha, a notch in the, in the section of strong female characters because it was clear that either she and the principal do or had a thing going, but she doesn’t just let him lay his hands all over her. She’s kind of rolls her eyes at it most of the time. Very forcefully, pushes him off. And I don’t know, I didn’t really get the relationship, but I kind of liked it.

I thought it was different. You know, she wasn’t just a bimbo. Yeah. Who’s funding all over the principal. He asked her to make some recordings and she’s like, I’m going to be up all night doing this, and I don’t even really understand what they were supposed to be recordings up.

Craig: I think she was supposed to be transcribing letters.

I think that he had dictated letters into a cassette player and she was supposed to transcribe them. It doesn’t matter

Todd: the scene. I think that almost follows this. Lynette Quigley’s character. Doris has gone now, so all we have is this teacher again, and he just hears this odd banging sound and it makes him wonder where is this clanging coming from?

And he’s curious enough about it that he goes out into the hallway and bumps into the track coach and it’s like, yeah, there’s this crazy banging. It sounds like it’s coming from the pipes, you know, to do it. Anything about it. I’m going to go to the boiler room and check it out. Like what really? So he goes into the boiler room and he’s like, anybody in here?

Are you kids banging around on the pipes? Look, I’m not going to get upset. And then a tape player is thrown at him and it is playing a recording of him and Dolores, what we didn’t see from their scene, which is hilarious.

Craig: Visit the Roberts center with your clothes off. Why

Todd: don’t you find me attractive?

Craig: Well, I’m sorry. You’re okay. You’re fine. Do you like

Todd: snakes? I call this my little Cobra.

Craig: Why is it poison, man?

Todd: God so funny. So

Craig: that was really

Todd: funny. Then two kids run out.

Craig: Yeah. Like it was just a prank. Like it has nothing to do with anything.

Todd: Yeah. And he lives, doesn’t he? Does he even die? I mean, he’s not on the track team. I don’t need anything

Craig: happen though. I don’t think he does.

Todd: I didn’t even think he was going to die because he goes into that place and I know he’s not on the fricking track team, so there was no.

Suspense. It offered me in the scene. I was just trying to figure out what the why in the world. Halfway across the school, he heard some clanging coming from somewhere and was so interested in stopping what he was doing and going into the boiler room and along with the bit where I didn’t understand why, um, Anne was allowed to just wander around the school for.

For ages and decided to go into the dark shop. What was that about?

Craig: I have no idea. Apparently the coach is also the woodshop teacher, but yeah, she walks into the dark wood shop and the machines come on mysteriously by themselves and then the coach comes in and he’s like, are you crazy? These are dangerous machines, and she’s like.

I didn’t turn him on and he’s like, okay, whatever. That’s it. No explanation ever for why that happened. Like I guess there was just a power surge or something that made the machines come on like it’s, it just seems really sloppily written. Like, wouldn’t that be scary if the machines came on for no reason?

Yeah, let’s do it. Okay.

Todd: It just gave the coach a reason to come running in, and I guess he was out in the hallway too, to hear the machines. So he comes and runs in and talks to Laura and that’s that. And the principal is no Saint either, apparently, because a, he doesn’t care about the kids a and B. He has a drawer full of switchblades, which I assume he’s confiscated from kids.

Is that the assumption, I guess, and a stopwatch

Craig: and gloves

Todd: and he is the worst at cutting an Apple I have ever seen anybody cut.

Craig: Yeah. He cuts it into like. For asymmetrical pieces, like through the core, like what was the point? God, but my faith, Dolores is my favorite and the ne quickly, she’s just, she’s just so cute and she just plays these.

Like she just dives into these roles and they’re so silly, but she, she’s just so endearing in them, but it’s just like her only characteristic in this movie is that she’s super horny and like she even says it more than once. Like, ah. So horny.

Todd: Tony,

Craig: you’re hanging out in the park and they’re like smoking a dupe and like they’re just chatting and then he’s like lounging with his head in her lap and then she just out of the blue is like. You weren’t really horny, and she goes to start on doing it, his pants, and he’s like smacking her hands away.

It says, Oh, there’s time for that later. There’s time for that later. Like she must be so hoardy if her teenage boyfriend is like swatting her hands away from his

Todd: cross, God nodding,

Craig: listening, chafe.

Todd: Oh, too. Too bad. I was just a kid at that time.

Craig: They get caught by like the school cop, like I guess there’s a cop of that word. I didn’t realize that there were resource officers in the 80s I mean, I know that there are now, but I don’t remember there being cops. At

Todd: school? Well, the thing that’s weird about it, and the movie does this a lot, is that we’re already almost an hour in and suddenly we’re being introduced to a new character, like who seems like he’s going to be somewhat significant this cop, and he’s ends up not actually being in many scenes after that.

So it doesn’t really matter. And then, you know, it’s just sort of like the, the detective who shows up later and is in maybe two scenes. Toward the end and that’s it.

Craig: Well, and they do stupid things like trying to establish conflict. Like they have this one totally random scene between the cop and the coach and the cops, like, I know all about you.

Uh, you better be careful. I could take you down, or something like that. And then that’s it. That’s the only scene they share together. There’s no context for what apparently this cop knows about the coach. Um, except for it. Like there’s a little bit of insinuation maybe that the coach. It has like lecherous relationships with the girls on the team.

Like it’s just that the tiniest hint that that could be, and the cop runs with that for that one. 15 seconds scene and then you never hear anything about it ever again. God and Oh,

Todd: there’s so much more to talk about. There’s so much more we

Craig: got to get through. Okay, good. I’m ready. Well, I mean,

Todd: it’s really funny that this one path through the woods is where pretty much all except for maybe one of the murders happens.

I think only Sally actually gets killed in the school. Right. And everybody else, like they’re walking through the park. And then they turn left into this path and you’re let go, great. I know what’s going to happen here. It happens all the time. And that’s where Linnea Quigley and her boyfriend are sitting on that bench before the cop chases them off.

That’s where this football, this one of the track team guys apparently also plays football and he’s back there tossing a football around and with himself. Yeah. And Vanna white and her friend like suddenly grabbed the football from him out of nowhere and Chuck it into the bushes and runaway like, hahaha.

So then he has to go into the bushes to find it. Luckily, all along the killer has been in there with a giant blade like four feet long that he managed to insert into this football, I guess, without deflating it so that he has as holding a football. With an F, like a four foot blade off of the end of it.

And again, we get this POV shot, um, and it’s, you know, the kid comes over as like, Hey, Hey, give me my football. And I guess the killer throws the football with the blade in it at the kid and impales him.

Craig: Yeah. That was hilarious.

Todd: It was silly.

Craig: It was the silliest thing. One of the silliest things I’ve ever seen, and like blood comes out of the guy’s mouth.

I don’t know what they were using for blood. It looked like rusty water. Like it didn’t look like blood at all. It was orange. It wasn’t red. Um, but that was, it was funny. And not only is it a POV shot from the killer, but then like, gosh, I may be misremembering this, but I almost feel like. You get like the football tracking shot?

Yeah. Like they put like, they put the football like right underneath the camera lens and then just moved the camera towards the guy with the shocked face until he gets impaled. Oh man. That was really, really funny.

Todd: And none of it was probable. And then,

Craig: and then there’s a sing along. Yes. And I really enjoyed that.

It was really long.

Todd: Yup.

Craig: The graduation day blues sing along. I enjoyed that a lot and then the cop threatens the coach and then there’s a break dancing scene. Yes, in the roller rink, which I also thought was pretty amazing

Todd: and a seven minute long music video. Like, I may be mistaken about this, but we have seen this happen in so many low budget horror films that I think there must be kind of a, an arrangement like, like w if you’re too cheap to go out and get the music rights to something or to have somebody write something for you, but you want to be hip and edgy and you want to have like a rock song or two in your movie.

The best thing to do is to approach a band that’s almost nothing but has good music and say, Hey, we’ll put you in the movie a lot if you just let us use a couple of your songs. And I felt like that was probably the tradeoff here.

Craig: It was. I mean, they, they, they didn’t charge them anything for the music.

Most probably because they got the exposure from being in the movie for like, they play a whole song. Like this whole scene takes place over this whole song. Um, and it’s the scene where, again, just sloppy writing in my opinion. So, um, Delores Linnea Quigley and her guy Tony sneak off into the woods to get down and, but the cop follows them into the woods and they make a big point.

Of showing you that the cop follows them into the woods. Yes. But then they get killed by the killer who, spoiler alert is not the cop so. Did the cop just like stand there and watch them while they were getting frisky and then watch while they got killed. Like I, they’re getting frisky and the guy is like  so he like goes off to take a pee and he’s peeing and he gets his head cut off

Todd: by a

Craig: soreness,

Todd: like a medieval sword bias.

Craig: By the

Todd: way, by the way, this

Craig: I was,

Todd: I was so impressed. By the effect at first, first of all, I think maybe it was cut quick enough or the lighting was just right that that blade comes around and lops his head off in slow motion and the camera gets all of it. Yeah. The head turns and stuff and I was like, ah, that is a great effect.

And then Linnea Quigley goes and discovers his head and it’s hanging from a tree and it looks like it’s made out of fricking paper. Mashay

Craig: it was horrible. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. 100%

Todd: like leave the shot of the head out of it. If your head looks so bad, and then the killer,

Craig: but the slow mode, the slow Mo of the head flying through the air really did look pretty good.

I was pretty impressed by that.

Todd: Tastic then Lynette quickly screams. The killer John jumps out of the bushes, like literally like ooga, booga, booga, booga

Sadly, this is the first time, and it was a poor choice, but it’s the first time. I’m pretty sure that we even see. The killer, and he’s wearing like a fencing mask and the grace sweatsuit and the black gloves. It’s got this giant medieval sword, which he then leaps it Linnea Quigley swings at her, but she ducks away and it glances.

Off of a twig. The same guy that was able to slice this sword cleanly through a guy’s neck couldn’t even put a dent in a sapling.

Craig: It was funny. It’s also funny cause when he jumps out like that, we do get the first shot of him and later when we find out who the killer is, it’s entirely obvious that the same actor did not utilize.

Yes. The killer in this scene is not. The person that they tell us it is at the end. In fact, I’m pretty sure that it’s the director, right?

Todd: Yep. You’re right. Yep. It’s the director, herb freed,

Craig: but completely different body type than the person who actually ends up being the killer. Yeah.

Todd: He should. Stick to directing cause he’s acting.

I mean, even when you’re not seeing your face, this is why some of our Jason actors get a lot of credit for the part they play with Jason. And at first glance you’d think, well his face is covered the whole time. He never says anything and all he does is pretty much stand there most of the time or run at somebody with assault with a knife.

But actually it does take some talent to be able to pull that off. This scene right here is clear indication of how you can’t just throw anybody into a. Jumpsuit and make them look very

Craig: well. And then you have the classic killer chasing the damsel through the woods, which I really enjoyed, especially since it was Linea.

And like, I love in one part, she’s running, and this goes on for a while. Mind you, uh, at one point she’s running and she’s holding her shirt together, and then the killer. I also love this in horror movies. Okay. So. She’s running. The killer is running more slowly behind her. It becomes evident that he’s not going to be able to catch her.

So he makes a 90 degree turn to the left, which magically allows him to then appear in front of her. Now I don’t understand

Todd: how that works cause

Craig: she kept running in a straight lie. I don’t know how he circled around her and ended up in front of her. But then at that point, her shirt is totally open, her boobs akimbo and uh, then she turns around and starts running back the other way in the very next shot.

Apparently she has taken the time to stop and button her shirt up entirely

and then she gets killed. And I’m always sad when she gets killed in movies

Todd: cause she’s always

Craig: my favorite.

Todd: And we didn’t even get, I mean, we, we know she was probably decapitated. You don’t actually see it happen. You just see the killer standing over her Murtha knife and bring it down. I read that apparently she vomited after that scene.

I guess it was her first, you know, kill, you know, in a movie and something about it disturbed her and she threw up. Oh, wow. Interesting. Yeah, I mean. Yeah. So anyway, but by then the song’s over. So the movie has to continue.

Craig: Yeah. Right. Um, then there’s, uh, like you said, uh, after the party, the principal’s fielding all these calls about missing kids, this inspector shows up for no good reason.

I mean, I guess the parents have called the police too. So this inspector shows up, um, more red herring stuff where the coach opens his drawer and there’s gloves and a stopwatch. And then Vanna white finds Sally’s body in the locker room and coach Michaels shows up in a full sweatsuit like the killer and Vanna and her friends scream and run away.

And so I guess everybody then just assumes that he did it cause he was there. W and Kevin, the boyfriend, yeah, runs in and like fights him. Where did he.

Todd: In the or did he come from,

Craig: I have no idea. Yeah. I mean, I guess he heard them screaming. I don’t know. But he comes in and they fight. Um, but Michael’s gets away and Kevin chases him into the woods and Han and the inspector are chasing them.

Yeah. That one spot that they could film in the woods. Parents,

Todd: like you said earlier, and in the inspector also show up out of nowhere. We have not seen them and suddenly they’re involved in this chase as well.

Craig: Uh huh.

And it got, I missed somewhere I missed. There was another scene that was just so random, like this kid just randomly is practicing his pole vaulting alone on the track. Field and like we see the whole buildup of him like running and he pull volts over and then he lands on the mat, but the mat has been rigged with all these spikes and so he’s just impaled on all these spikes.

I mean, I thought it was a clever kill scene, but it was just like dropped in like, like, we need another kill. All right, here we go.

Todd: Yeah,

Craig: we was like it in wherever.

Todd: It’s like, Oh, we forgot we gotta we gotta kill up one more kid. And I mean, it was an interesting kill.

Craig: It was one of the more interesting ones.

Todd: We haven’t seen death by pole vaulting, and we haven’t seen death by football yet. I think, uh. So,

Craig: yeah,

Todd: that’s, that’s true.

Craig: Put 200 and some movies in. Yeah, that’s good. But anyway. Okay. So then there’s a big show down in the woods with Michael’s. Michael’s stumped. That’s the coach. He stumbles over the dead football player and Kevin catches up to him.

The coach is like, I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill anybody. And Kevin’s like, yes, you did. You killed her, and now you’ve got to be punished. And so then Michael’s bitch slaps him. That is so funny to me. Like who decides these things? Like he doesn’t punch him. He doesn’t like, you know, both ways, like across the face and backhand bitch slaps him, which I just thought it was so funny.

But this is, uh, where we find out, because at this point, Kevin, who has been Mia for the last 45 minutes, just. Says, uh, yeah, you killed her cause you pushed her too hard. You all did. You all killed her. Um, we were going to get . Married right after graduation, like the same day. Um, but, but, but she’s dead because of you.

And so I have to punish all of you. So now we know that Kevin is the killer and he’s got a knife. But Michael somehow knocks him down and gets a hold of the knife. So then he’s there standing over the dead football player and Kevin, who’s on the ground. And so the inspector just whips out his gun and shoots the coach dead

and, and so then they’re all there, Anne’s there. So she comforts poor Kevin and they all disperse. And I guess is like over it. So she goes to Blondie in the principal’s office and it’s like, all right, look, can you just give me Laura’s trophy and her diploma so I can get the hell out of here? And,

Todd: and we’re like, please give it to her.

I know, right?

Craig: God, go back to Guam. Seriously. This seems to be over.

Todd: I was surprised the movie. Well, I wasn’t surprised the movie is still going cause we had to have justice. Right. Okay. I

Craig: guess. Um, but, but anyway, Blondie’s like, but wait, Kevin came and got those earlier. He said you told him to and he doesn’t seem like the kind of boy who would lie.

And Anne’s like, no. No, he does.

She leaves and goes back to his creepy house where, okay, so the first time she’s in his creepy house, there’s like this seven foot tall nude statue of a man. And when she goes back to his house. It has moved, like it’s the biggest thing in the room, and it was front and center in the first scene. And now in the next scene, somebody has moved it to the staircase, like it’s standing.

This giant nude man is standing on the stairs. Why?

Todd: I don’t get it.

Craig: And it doesn’t make any difference and it doesn’t play into anything. It was just like a little trick. I don’t know. Um, but she does, she goes to his house and. She’s looking around and she ends up up in his room and then she is startled because somebody is sitting in a chair, a girl is sitting in a chair and she’s like, Oh, I’m sorry.

I didn’t mean to bother you. I was just looking for Kevin, and she comes around to the front and very, you know, mother Bates psycho style. It’s her sister. Laura’s rotting. Corpse, but still with very beautiful hair. And uh, so she’s scared, I guess. And then Kevin comes in and just starts crazily rambling, and he’s like, Oh, I’m so glad you’re here.

I wanted you to be the first to kiss the bride. And Ann’s like. What he’s like, Oh, we’re getting married today, right after graduation, and you love her, don’t you want to kiss her? And so then they start tussling. And the most. It’s, it’s beautiful, really. I love it, but it’s one of the most contrived things I’ve ever seen.

Like somehow they end up on opposite sides of the corpse chair and an like falls into the chair, which pushes Laura’s corpse up and out of the chair into Kevin’s arms and both Kevin and the corpse go out. The second story window.

Todd: Yes.

Craig: And, and looks out there and they’re both just laying there, presumably dead, but then she runs downstairs and she opens the front door and Kevin just saunters in carrying the body, like,

Todd: right, pastor.

Craig: Yeah. Lucky you barely know. Doesn’t give her a glance. Yeah,

Todd: nothing. Excuse me. I just got a package to take in,

but nevertheless, she goes . Tearing out of there. Right. And she ends up right once again, tearing through the fricking park and that same, you know, strip that everybody likes to go down and sudden, I guess the idea is that Kevin is now in pursuit of her, even though we haven’t seen him run out of the house and she stumbles into all the bodies, she sees, you know, the people in the, the heads, and

Craig: she runs to the track field.

Like, where are you going. Like there’s like there’s a killer chasing you and you run to the football field. Like there’s nobody there. She gets there and she’s just too exhausted to keep going. Well, maybe take your heels off. That might help. Oh man, it’s so dumb. And then he shows up and that. Yeah.

Todd: I just love that, that he, it turns out he’s hidden all these rest of these body parts and pieces and things under the bleachers, which you can clearly see from anywhere you want to stand.

I don’t know how long those things have been back in there that nobody’s noticed and they have a tussle there and God, how does he die? What happens to him

Craig: somehow? Okay, so somehow the guy that was. Killed via pole vault. Somehow he has been like strung up on a wall or a door so that he’s vertical and the spikes that he landed on are still sticking out of him.

Todd: Somehow

Craig: and some. Yeah. And somehow in an end Kevin’s tussle, she pushes him or something and he backs into those spikes and he walks off of them and you think he’s going to be okay, but then he starts. Spewing blood out of his mouth, and he falls down on the ground and twitches around for a little bit.

Yeah. But then he’s dead. Um, and, and that, I have to say that fight scene was one of the most ridiculous, poorly choreographed fights I have ever seen. There’s, there’s one part where she opens a gate. Like a, like a chain link, fence Gates, a tall one, like a six foot tall one and then closes it behind her but doesn’t latch it.

And she’s just holding it and he’s acting like he’s struggling to get in. Like he couldn’t just pull it open or push it either way, cause it would go either way. Instead he grabs either side of the gate, like he’s gonna like. Incredible Hulk, like rip it open.

Todd: What are you doing?

Craig: It’s not even lat and they’re fighting through the fence.

Oh my gosh. It was really, really bad, but fun

Todd: because it was so bad. It was fun in its badness.

Craig: And then, okay, so he’s dead. And then we get a shot of Anne sleeping in her house, and then Kevin like zombie. Kevin, like Bursztyn. But then the light comes on cause her mom turns on the light and it’s not really, Kevin is just her asshole stepdad for no reason.

Yeah. And then the next morning she drives away the end. That’s it.

Todd: Why didn’t they just end the movie with his death? What was with that weird jump scare with her waking back up again and then. Why do we have to see her leave the house and get in a taxi drive off, then

Craig: go through that. She can drive under the graduation day banner.

That’s why, so that they can freeze. Frame it on the graduation day banner. Yeah, yeah. Oh man. That was a really terrible movie, really.

Todd: But it was fun. I mean, it was fun. And its badness, I have to say, and if this is, this is the one that if you and I had been sitting next to each other when we watched it, Oh my God, we would have had a blast.

I really think we,

Craig: yeah.

Todd: So

Craig: I think so too. It is. It does it, it’s not one of my favorites, but it does fall into that category kind of of so bad. It’s good. Like it’s just so ridiculous. Just ridiculous. The writing is, is just awful, really. I mean, the dialogue is kind of stupid but serviceable. It’s just like the plot points don’t make any sense.

And they T they spend so much time trying to set up red herrings that you just don’t even. And care like, Oh, okay. I guess it could be him. Who cares? Everybody has a gray sweatsuit. Everybody has a drawer full of knives. Everybody has the exact same stopwatch. Like, all right, fine. It could be anybody who cares.

Keep going.

Where’s the of quickly hit

Todd: your tits out.

All right.

Craig: Oh man, I sound terrible. But when I talk about her like that, cause it sounds totally objectifying and in a way it is. But we have spoken to her and she has a really good sense of humor about it. And she w you know, I, I really respect and admire her for just embracing that aspect of. Careers for young women like her in horror at the time that, you know, if you wanted to work, you showed your boobs.

And she was young and cute and had good boobs. And I applaud her

Todd: array for the Linea Quigley’s boobs.

Craig: Absolutely. But, and that’s about it.

But no, it was, it was fun to watch. I, you know, I didn’t. I wouldn’t, I would never watch it again. No. Like there’s no rewatch value. Um, but it was fun to watch and it was fun to talk about. I, so, uh, who was it that recommended this?

Todd: Dave. Thank you, Dave.

Craig: Thanks, Dave. It was a good recommendation.

Todd: Really appreciate it.

Yeah. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. Thanks once again, Dave, for recommending this one. If you have something to request, we love to hear your request. We have a nice long list of them we go through and we’re going through them now, so find us online. Just search for two guys in a chainsaw.

We have a Facebook taste, we have a web page page, and we have a YouTube channel. You can leave us a comment on any of those places and we’ll spend weeks. Also, if you liked this podcast, please share it with a friend. And subscribed to us over on YouTube so we can go up until next time. I’m Todd

Craig: and I’m Craig,

Todd: the two guys and a chainsaw.

This week’s request comes courtesy of Mikey. A Full Moon production of the typical Full Moon quality. We wanted to enjoy this movie as a fun, cheesy romp. But instead, we kinda rolled our eyes at it. We discuss how Seedpeople ultimately disappointed and what it lacked, in an episode almost as short as the movie itself. Enjoy!

Seedpeople (1992)

Episode 211, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, we are well into some requests this month. It’s been a bit of a while since we sat down just to have a good, fun, goofy, dumb horror movie, right? Yeah. So going through the list, I could see no better title than seed people.

Craig: Why not?

Todd: Why not Seedpeople? It was recommended by Mikey. So thank you, Mikey for this seed people is a Charles band production from 1992.

And, uh, as a Charles band production, I don’t know. I mean, we’ve done some Charles band films before. This guy has a studio called full moon productions, and he has produced over 300 movies. He’s directed. Almost 70 of them, and they’re responsible for such classics as Dollman and Puppet Master, Evil Bong one, two, three, four and five.

The Gingerdead Man. I mean it’s, it’s mostly straight to video. Schlock is generally what it is. There’s some good things in there, just depending on the movie, depending on the script and depending on the director. As it always is. So, uh, this film seed people is a straight off rip off of, um,

Craig: Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Todd: Thank you. Just, just any of these films where some alien, literal alien meter meteorite crashes to earth. And starts to infect people and you don’t know who’s a seed person and who’s not. Ooh, so scary. So this is a, this is the movie. This is basically what it is. Uh, I’d never seen it before. Never heard of it before.

Uh, but thank you, Mikey for recommending it. How about you, Craig? Is there any chance you’d run across this thing. No,

Craig: no, I never heard of it. You know, I’ve, uh, Charles Band stuff. It has a reputation for not being the highest quality, uh, cinema. But like you said, every once in a while there’s something fun.

I mean, there are at least, uh, kind of fun to sit through and giggle at. Um, and that’s what I was looking forward to here. I thought, okay, you know, it’s, it’s going to be good. Fee, it’s going to be silly practical affects. And I was down for that. Uh, when it was over, I found myself thinking, gosh, if you’re going to be this bad, like at least be funny.

Todd: Cause it

Craig: wasn’t even funny. Like there were a couple of funny parts where I laughed out loud, but for the most part it took itself really seriously. I’m like, how can you take yourself this seriously? This is. Not good stuff. Yeah, but that’s okay. You know, seed people, whatever.

Todd: He’s kind of like a low rent.

Roger Corman in a way, and the scripts usually are, I don’t know, they’re often kind of like this, like you said, it’s a silly concept and they take it too seriously. And so the acting quality is actually passable, I think for most of the movie. It’s not bad. It’s not. It’s not laugh out loud. Funny. Uh, in most parts, uh, for the acting wise, um, the script, you know what I was thinking when I was watching this movie, especially by the end, I thought, cause I’m going back and I’m trying to think why is this movie so bad?

It shouldn’t be this bad. And it wasn’t like I wanted to turn it off, but I kind of did. It was just blah. And.

Craig: I see

Todd: it, and I went back and I thought about it like the script. If you would take in the script maybe, and you had just put it in the hands of. A completely different team. It might’ve actually been a pretty good movie.

It almost had all of the elements, even kind of cliche. You got the new guy in town, or who’s returning to small town, a meteorite is there, uh, people are getting possessed. There’s a girl running around who kind of discovers it before anybody else. Then it turns out there’s the kooky, crazy, wacky, but super smart guy in town, and nobody takes seriously but really knows exactly what’s going on.

Get the sheriff involved. I mean, there’s just all these elements that could have worked. They wouldn’t have been particularly original, but it would have made a better movie. I think if it just didn’t feel so low rent, you know, every bit of it.

Craig: It did. And we were, okay. So we were supposed to record this podcast yesterday, but I couldn’t sleep the night before.

And so I was dog tired and then I begged Todd to put it off for a day. So that means that, uh, I watched this the day before yesterday and I barely remember anything about it. Like, that’s how impactful it was for me. Like, you know. I don’t know. Some like bushes roll around and jump on people.

Todd: That’s,

Craig: that’s, I mean, that’s, there’s a guy who’s kind of like a knockoff of doc from back to the future and he’s goofy.

Like that’s, that’s about it. I, I,

Todd: so

Craig: thanks for listening. We’ll talk to you next week,

Todd: but

Craig: no, I don’t know. Like, I just don’t know much, uh, what to say about it. So maybe we should just jump in and see where it goes.

Todd: Oh, God. There are a lot of characters in this movie too.

Craig: Too many, too. And all of the guys look the same.

Like I couldn’t tell except for the main guy who looks like. Okay. So the main guy’s name is Tom. Um, and he’s a geologist cause that matters apparently. And uh, when the movie opens up, he’s strapped into a hospital bed with a head injury, like a doctor’s talking to him. And then an FBI guy comes in and talks to them and he’s like, Oh, don’t worry, everything’s fine.

I just. Need to get your story so we know what’s going on. So, uh, tell us your story. And so then that’s what the whole movie is. It’s this guy narrating this story and it’s super obnoxious fashion, like really annoying voiceover narration throughout the whole movie. Like, uh, it just drove me crazy. Like, you be watching the movie and here he’s like.

You know, walking up to a building or something. And then I decided I need to go over to so-and-so’s house. Like we’re watching you do it. You don’t need to tell us what we have eyeballs. But he’s telling this whole story and he talks about how he’s going back to his hometown of a comet Valley. Cause you gotta, you know, get right on the nose right there.

Common Valley, the whole town is going to be closed for three days because there’s only one way in and one way out in this one bridge. And, uh, they’re going to be working on the bridge for three days to, nobody can go anywhere. And he’s gonna. Be staying at his ex girlfriend’s parents bed and breakfast, and her name is Heidi.

And the first thing that bothered me was this guy, Tom, looks like he’s gotta be, at least in his forties and this girl who’s supposed to be as ex looks like she should be his daughter. Like what other lifetime did they have a relationship because gross,

Todd: maybe what it was like 10 years ago I thought was sheep.

12 or 16 yeah.

Craig: And he was like in his mid thirties you?

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And then, and then she’s got like, I don’t know what, like her sister died or something. And so now she’s helping. Being to raise her niece who looks to be like the exact same age as her, but this the actor who plays her niece that the niece’s name is Kim and the girl who plays her, his name is Holly fields.

Not that it matters cause I’ve never heard of any of these actors before. But this girl looks like she’s the same age as her aunt, but they’re dressing her in clothes that are ridiculously too young for her. Like, like they. This twenties yeah. They took this 20 something year old woman and put her in like pigtail braids and jumpers and they’re like, Oh, she’s 12 no, like,

Todd: like an eighties Dorothy Gale is exactly what she

eats

Todd: and she kind of acts like it too. Yeah. The whole setup is kind of silly. I will say that this script is smart in that it’s. The person who wrote it is seen a lot of movies and they do get to the point pretty quickly and they are pretty economical about getting all this information across. Even though it’s mostly just said through oftentimes a little cheesy dialogue, like you can tell they just needed an excuse to work in the backstory of each of these characters.

I love it when he goes in and he staying at his ex girlfriend’s place apparently was okay enough to book, but when he goes in. She’s kind of standoffish to him for no really good reason. Very

Craig: nice. The place looks good. You’ve changed the place a lot,

but

Todd: you haven’t changed.

Craig: Is this supposed to be a compliment? You miss my mom. Well, it is, and you look right. I’m not the complacent. A little butterfly was when you and I were an item

Todd: complacent.

Craig: When Sally died, I not only lost my sister-in-law, I lost my best friend, and I know it must have been hard.

Yeah, it still is. And I’m the designated mother for Kim.

Todd: Now

Craig: she’s going through a difficult age and I just take it one day at a time.

Todd: So what’s it like

Craig: changing your home into a bed and breakfast? What’s in, I think divorce was still living with your ex wife,

Todd: like the acting. It’s just so bad that everything is just a little flat, so you don’t really believe it.

You feel like you’re watching a movie. So all these relationships, like you said, the age of the actors immediately comes to mind. Some of the still to dialogue and the way it’s delivered, just it doesn’t really pull you in. To the story, you know, you’re watching a movie and then the whole premise that, and this is maybe my biggest beef with it, this whole premise there, you’ve got this town called common Valley.

There’s one bridge in and out of this town. Okay. I’m trying to imagine that scenario,

Craig: right? Like it’s on like a floating Island or something like that.

Todd: It’s clearly not. And this little rinky dink bridge is definitely not. Anything that would be an entrance or an exit to a town where that was so critical and so crucial, and correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t people driving across it the whole time, even though they’re supposed to be working on it?

Craig: Yeah, I don’t know.

Todd: And then he’s being called back into this town by an old friend whose name is Thurman. He’s being called back to give a speech on meteorites. So he’s presumably come in, I don’t know, from big city, New York or something to this tiny town. All expenses paid to speak about meteorites.

When he ends up giving this speech, it’s like to 12 people. Yeah. In what looks like a little room in the

Craig: high school gymnasium. Yeah, I know.

Todd: No, not a, not a gymnasium. It’s like a classroom

Craig: and

Todd: just everything about this movie is so small, you know, like there’s no ambition here

Craig: and he doesn’t say anything that I couldn’t say.

After looking in like a third grade geography book or not geography, geology book. He’s like, when rocks fall out of the sky, they’re called meteors, but when little pieces break off and land, they’re called media rights. That is his whole lecture

and maybe there is some here.

Todd: Well to be fair, he does work in the history of the town, and that’s where we get, that’s the whole purpose for the scene, right? It’s for us to know that there’s a reason this place is called common Valley and that is theirs. I don’t know if it was an old legend or something that’s just passed down by the generations, or if they just infer a whole.

Hell of a lot from some abstract cave drawings in a cave that’s there.

Craig: Yeah. And, and there are these hieroglyphics that look like they were drawn in crayon in this cave, the size of a shoe box. You’re right. Anybody can just walk right in and out of it. Yeah. It’s like

Todd: that’s,

Craig: it’s not, it’s not even like, it’s not even like they’re discovering these hieroglyphics, like they’re there and everybody knows it

Todd: or they’re just going to check them out again.

Craig: Yeah. Just take a look.

Todd: It’s part of the circuit, you know? I know what this is like. You go back to a small town, there’s not a lot to do. You know, you hit up the pizza place, you always hit up, you go to the park and you know to that. He’ll let you always play ball on and sit and have a picnic, and you’ve got a circuit of things you gotta do before you get down to whatever your business is that you’re there for.

Right. And you see people or whatever. So I get it. I guess that’s what they’re doing. And like you and I are saying, everything is just so small. It’s like an ambitious script with a very low production quality and nobody really cares.

Craig: Well, it’s just that whole. Indian cave drawing thing just kills me. In my small town, we have native American, like rock etchings and stuff, and I’ve seen them, but it’s not like I have to revisit them every few months to remember what they look like, like they’re there, I know it.

It’s okay. Anyway, whatever. And then they try to establish conflict in just dumb ways. Like Kim, the young girl who’s not really is convinced that. The made at the bed and breakfast. Mrs. Santiago is, is acting strangely, and she’s like, she can read my mind. I’ll prove it. And like somehow later she’s going to prove that this lady can read her mind by videotaping her.

I don’t under,

Todd: I just runs around and videotape stuff, which is just an excuse to

Craig: get bad video footage.

Todd: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that’s her quirk. Right?

Craig: Right. And then there’s ed, who’s a farmer who’s mad because people are out in the middle of the night. What he thinks, like looking for meteorites and his orchard or whatever, which it turns out is true.

That’s precisely what they’re doing that for bad reasons. And there’s, there’s Brad who’s a deputy sheriff who’s like interested in Heidi. See way too many people. I don’t care about any of them. I can’t keep track of who they are. So forgive me as we go through this, when I’m calling people the wrong names, because I didn’t know who was.

Todd: And then there’s a guy named Frank Wright who’s over at the bed and breakfast eating with them, and he’s the

Craig: father that’s, that’s, that’s Kim’s dad, right? Kim’s dad. Right. I’ve been trying to get to this part because it’s my favorite part of the whole

Todd: movie. What you’re going to say.

Craig: Exactly.

Todd: You’re going to start talking about, we could just make the whole podcast about the scene, by the way, and then I think, let’s do.

Craig: So, so he’s a farmer, he’s her dad. Um, and apparently I guess like what they farm in this town is apples cause everybody’s always out in these orchards. And so he goes out to like check his orchards or whatever, and he turns on the irrigation thing and then he walks into kind of this little kind of clearing and there’s this one tree that’s got.

Something weird on it. Now the, the quality of the video that I was watching was so poor that I really couldn’t even tell like, I guess what they were like alien flowers or something like growing on this tree

Todd: or something. Yeah. Maybe what you could

say

Craig: Harry pods and, and like he pokes the middle of one.

And it starts to like ooze a little bit and then it just comes all over his face.

Todd: I felt dirty, white,

thick,

Craig: white, slimy, Spood all over his body.

Todd: It doesn’t stop.

Craig: And I, and I was like, I feel like I’ve seen this movie before. Um. I think I have. Maybe

Todd: you probably did

Craig: anyway.

Todd: Oh my God. There’s a lot of it. It’s,

Craig: it’s a lot

Todd: more than more than humanly or alien only possible one would think,

Craig: well, I don’t know. I’ll sit and get some links.

Uh, but so anyways, so then like, he’s like on the ground, drowning in stuff, and, uh, I guess it kind of like dissolves him. And. Like an alien comes out and these aliens are like coconuts with arms and scary mouths and they walk, they don’t have any legs, so they walk on their arms and like the phone in his truck starts ringing.

So like the little coconut with arms. Like starts waddling over to the truck. The person on the other line is like, hello, and all of a sudden it’s Frank again. So basically what’s going on here is these people get it. It’s, it’s difficult to say because in this instance, it’s like his body gets decomposed and comes back as something else, but he can still turn into his human form.

But then later in the movie, it seems like under certain circumstances, they can just be cured. So I don’t really know how that works.

Todd: It’s just silly. They want, you know, they wanted to have a nice, cool, special effect with these aliens, but then they also wanted to create the situation where they didn’t have to have too many special effects.

So it’s invasion of the body snatchers where then these aliens can just. We don’t see them really well. Maybe once we see them transformed, don’t we? But generally they just, um, suddenly are people again, they walk around and then from here on out, the movie becomes pretty slow because there’s just a bunch of investigation going on.

And what spurs it all is somebody gets killed.

Craig: It’s Thurman that gets killed first. Kim. Like plays a little cat and mouse game with Mrs. Santiago where she’s like trying to videotape her. Um, but she’s not really getting anything. And then like her huge video camera like malfunctions for a second or something.

And while she’s messing with that, apparently Mrs. Santiago turns into her seed person thing and like rolls at her. It’s so weird. Like I read that the way that they did this, they, because they roll like critters, like, yeah, there’s no better way to describe it. That’s exactly what they look like. Except bigger.

They roll around like the critters do. And um, the way they did it was they just like covered balls in some kind of material and then strung them along behind remote control cars. And it pretty much looks like that. It doesn’t look good at all.

Todd: Yeah, there’s some behind the scenes footage. I mean, they’re really proud of of this.

I guess if you rented a full moon video or you bought one at the end of every one, they have a behind the scenes stuff and previews of other attractions that they offer. I watched a whole 25 minute deal on this movie, believe it or not, that was up on YouTube that taught, that showed you all the special effects and everything that was going on in the background.

And honestly, it looked like a pretty good time. I mean, everybody. Was definitely having a ball. Making the movie was very proud of what they were doing and the special effects from the behind the scenes footage. Look. Kind of cool and professional, but on the screen itself, um, they’re lacking. But for a low budget eighties movie, we’ve seen much worse.

Craig: Oh, definitely.

Todd: Creature effects and things like that. So actually it’s. I put it middle of the road.

Craig: Yeah. I suppose that you could also say that it’s kind of a throwback to these monster movies of the fifties and if that’s what they were going for, I get it. You know, I, I see it there. It just doesn’t, it seemed like if you are going to do a throwback.

To this kind of cheesy movie from the fifties or whatever that you might be a little bit more tongue in cheek about it, but yeah, whatever you were talking about how Thurman gets killed. Okay, so Thurman and like a farmer or something. I don’t remember who it was. They’re out like looking around. And they find the weird tree too, and it’s my favorite line.

Ed, the farmer, I think it’s ed. I don’t know. Whatever farmer says what in a Dean dong have come a doodle. Hell is that? Yeah. Yeah. And that was worth watching the whole movie.

Todd: Yes.

Craig: Seriously. I’m done that. I mean, that’s it. That’s I, I’ve just been waiting to say that. Take it, take it away.

Todd: After his exclamation, they blow corn pops at him, this pit pod, so it doesn’t just, you know, splurge.

It also spits. So it doesn’t even have an internal. Consistency or logic,

but it’s these end up all over his body and he just kind of falls down and Thurman runs away at the same time. We’ve got this crazy guy doc. He is strung up with fluorescent tubes half the time and is just kind of running around chattering most of the time, and I guess he lives. In a house with a big greenhouse attached in the woods.

And at this point he’s, Oh, he’s also a drunk. So at this point he had gotten into his car, his truck, and was driving down the road drunk. And Thurman ran out in front of him and he hit him. And I’m not really sure why doctors doesn’t get arrested or

Craig: they can’t find him. Somehow they know. Like because they find a his hubcap or something.

They know it was him.

Todd: Oh, that was hilarious. He holds up this generic hub gap and says there’s only one man in town who has a truck with hubcaps like this here. Right. Like, it looks like every other truck.

Craig: Okay. Yeah. And then Burt, who’s Bert? I don’t know Bert.

Todd: He’s the greenhouse guy.

Craig: He’s like, doc roller, right?

Todd: None. Well, doc has a greenhouse, but Bert is like a, he’s got kind of a, I don’t know if he starts the trees or whatever. He’s got a greenhouse that he tends to, he’s a farmer.

Craig: Yeah. Another farmer. Yeah. He finds after the, okay, so they have that meeting that we already talked about and then he takes Tom out to his trunk and he’s like, look, I found this big.

Todd: I have

Craig: never seen anything like this. My friend

Todd: never,

Craig: what do you say? We pulled her out of here and take over to Thurman’s warehouse so I can run some tests on and give them a

Todd: better look at it. Do whatever you want to do. You think it looks like a meteorite?

Craig: Yes, sir. I sure did. I sure do. And even better than that, you see the sediment that

Todd: she’s stuck in here?

I can

Craig: pull this into a carbon date on it. Yeah. Yeah. I’ll be able to

Todd: tell when she fell to earth, it was about four or 500

Craig: years ago. You may have the rock in the pictograph there, my friend. This might be the comment down immediate, right, so what does he do? He takes it to Kim, the little girl, and she’s like cleaning it up.

And she’s like, it looks like a giant peach pit, and yes, yes it does. That’s exactly what it looks like.

Todd: This is supposed to be their bonding moment. I think they’ve, they’re in the garage, real scientific location. They’re in the garage and he and her and Heidi are all three there. It seems like they’re trying to give the impression that he’s trying to win Heidi over by being nice to Kim, I guess, and give her things to do.

We’re going to see more of these seeds, which look like giant peach pits later. Doc’s got a whole bunch of them in his area.

Craig: Right. Well, and somewhere in there, Tom sees Mrs. Santiago as a seed person, but like isn’t particularly concerned about it. That’s so weird. Like, like, like she I think is in his room, like snooping around and the door is locked and so like he’s fumbling with.

The door. And then when he opens up the door, there’s like this eight foot tall monster that like lunges at him and he falls over backwards. But then Mrs. Santiago comes out and Heidi’s like, what’s going on? He’s like, I don’t know. That was really weird.

Todd: There

Craig: was something in there. So strange.

Todd: Oh, well. And then he just keeps, Oh, well. This is his investigation time, right? He goes to,

Craig: he goes to docks.

Todd: Well, he goes to Burt first of all, and he talks to him and, uh, Burt says, you know, doc, people say he’s crazy, but actually he’s pretty smart. I’m like, okay, maybe I can go to docs.

So then he goes to docs and pokes around and he sees a couple of these seeds, and I don’t know. Cuts one open or what is open and there’s gooey stuff inside. Moving around

Craig: like it looks like green worms, like big. It was weird. Yeah, it was gross. Um, and I didn’t really get it. Like, I didn’t really understand.

I didn’t, because then he opens up, um, like docs, like journal or science notes or something. Um, and on one page it says, today I did it sprouts. And so he thinks that doc is trying to. I don’t know. Sprout the seeds, I guess. Um, but then later when he confronts doc about, it’s like, no. He’s like, I’m not trying to do that.

You know, you saw those seeds in water. That wasn’t water though. That was like, um, herbicide or something, and I never really got it because on the one hand, it seems like. Doc knows that these things are dangerous and he’s trying to stop the spread, but then on the other hand, he’s also like scientifically curious and wants to know how they work.

It’s a mess.

Todd: There is a mess. I mean, a little bit later in the movie when we get kind of to the climax and they’re going to go after and they’re going to kill all these. He has kind of a little throwaway bit where he runs up to uh, Tom and it’s like, can’t we just keep one seed? Can’t we just keep one just for scientific experiments?

And Tom’s like, are you mad? And that’s sort of the end of that. There’s no real intrigue. There were some, you know, it’s not an alien situation where somebody is trying to sneak away something for, for their own benefit. At one point, doc goes and visits Tom in his garage and he’s acting all crazy and holds a gun up to him.

They have kind of a lame fight slash, standoff, and then the sheriff pulls up for no good reason and comes out and Tom walks up to him and says, Oh, I found doc and the Sheriff’s like, get out of my way. I’m going to handle this from now on. Antagonistic for no reason at all, and then goes in and has another super lame like prowling around aiming his gun around the door, trying to find doc thing.

I think at some point in here, doc says a poem too, which I guess is supposed to be sinister, but just comes across really silly.

Craig: Yeah. I forgot there was a poem. It was a poem. I suppose you don’t know that what you were examining is not mineral, so why don’t you tell me what it is and doc. This was the goal.

Of the leaf and the root. This little grade is the ultimate frog for this. The blossom burn, it’s our, this is the awesome vessel of our right. I do know at one point he very ominously says, plants are the most cunning and Savage of all life forms, and. And the, and Tom’s like, what are you talking about?

They can’t even move. And he’s like, well, maybe they can’t that seeds, cans, seeds are chasing us. I don’t even understand what is happening. Like I are are these are these seeds? Like, okay, so these monsters are the monsters themselves. Seeds. Well, I don’t think,

Todd: I think it’s sort of predicated on the idea.

And he says this too. Seeds are extremely durable, like you can freeze them, you can like, you know, keep them for, for thousands of years somewhere and then they’ll still sprout under the right conditions. You can send them into space is basically saying these seeds from space are not to be messed with.

It could be anything that could be thousands of years old. We don’t know where they’re from, but those seeds themselves are super, super durable. And that’s why, you know, that’s why they’re so. Scary. I get the seeds are, I don’t think the creatures that come from them seem all that durable at all.

Craig: Well, but Tom says to the, um, FBI guy, at some point, he, he’s like, did I get them all?

Did I get them all? And the guy’s like, Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. And he’s like, no, you don’t understand. You can’t just shoot a seed. You have to hack it into a million pieces. And then later, like, or earlier or whatever in the timeline. I don’t know. Jumps back and forth cause it’s all flashback at some point at the end when there’s like the big confrontation showdown, he does, he like takes a hatchet and like he’s like tearing up these seed people.

So I don’t, and it is called seed people. So I think the monsters are supposed to be seeds, but I don’t know what they’re trying to grow. And I will. I don’t know. I don’t get it. Um, there’s a scene where, um, the girl, Kim sees people looking around out in the orchard with flashlights at night. She takes the video camera out there and it’s a whole bunch of people.

One of them’s are dad, and at some point, like one of the seed things rolls at her and she videotapes that and another one flies over her head like. Just in this one moment. They can fly too. I get that. But then she sees her dad like standing right in front of her and he’s like, come to daddy. And she’s like, yeah, you’re not my daddy.

And then she points the camera at him and in this really, really low fi camera view, we see him. Transform, and it was so obvious that they had to do it through this low fi lens just because the special effects work was so low budget, and that’s the only time we ever actually see anybody transform.

Usually it’s just somebody from off screen, like tosses one of those things at somebody or they’re rolling around on the ground

Todd: and then they wrestle with it as though the laws of gravity no longer apply. And you know right. You can’t just throw it off of you. We had this problem too with another Charles band production.

I think it was a puppet master.

Craig: Maybe. I don’t know.

Todd: This is the point at which, you know, we realize they’ll pretty much the whole town apparently now set for these few people have been transformed into seed people and they’re walking around more or less like zombies in invasion of the body snatchers and there’s this giant seed with little seedlets.

I guess.

Craig: Coming that they’re digging up,

Todd: that they’re digging up. So I guess the idea is this is, this is the big meteorite that the town is known for, uh, that they’ve all just suddenly dug up. So it’s right there. It’s just, it’s like, I don’t think it was dug up. It’s a mound. It’s like. Not just an inch or two below the surface, but it’s so obvious.

It was right by the road. Yeah. Right.

Craig: Yeah. And it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s huge, right? It’s like the size of a camper. The movie doesn’t even make any sense to me. Okay. So Frank got spooked on and then that other guy got covered in corn pops, but then like Frank can just kind of hypnotize Heidi and Kim into being seed people and then all of a sudden they are.

For a while and there

Todd: are something

Craig: in like reaches out one of his seed people arms and then all of a sudden they are seed people too. But at some point, I don’t know, like, so Tom is still normal and he’s running around with doc, I guess. And in some, in some points, the seed people are like chasing after them and trying to attack them.

And then in another part. I feel like doc and Tom are standing, I don’t know, like in a garage or something and Heidi and Frank show up in a truck and like start loading or unloading a truck or something and Frank’s like, they can’t even see us. And ducks like, yeah, they can see us. We just are in consequential.

Like since when, like they’ve been chasing you for the whole rest of the movie. Now they just don’t care.

Todd: But then they do care. Cause then they go into the shed and they run at them and they kind of duck out of the way and they fall against a table and there’s an ultraviolet light that’s swinging overhead because they’re in a grow room.

I don’t, none of this makes sense to me because ultra God. Alright. And so. We were introduced the ultraviolet light thing in the greenhouse where Bert worked. He apparently has all these ultraviolet lights strung up over the plants. Now, I don’t know if you know anything about ultraviolet light, but pure ultraviolet light is going to kill plants, right?

I know this because we turn on ultraviolet lights here at the school where I work. We actually have them installed in the rooms so that like once or twice a week, it sort of sanitizes the room and everybody’s got to take the plants out. Before we turn that on. So they do have a negative effect on plants, and that is ultimately the crutch that they find the swing ultraviolet light swings back and forth.

They fall against this table and suddenly they’re staring up at it and they look, and the doc and Tom look at each other and they’re like, it must be the ultraviolet light, and suddenly these two are back to normal again. They’re fine. There’s no transformation, there’s no whatever. It’s just like I’m purified, I guess.

So I guess it. It did kill the plants. Now doc himself has been streaming himself up with ultraviolet lights this whole time, so you get the impression that he knows that, that he already knows their weakness, that he’s discovered it. But here it’s like he’s rediscovering it for the second time or getting proof that it works.

I don’t know. Then they go to Bert. Bert isn’t a greenhouse and that, and he has tons of ultraviolet lights. And so they, you know, our take dig, they enlist him to take all that stuff down. They’re going to make a big trap for these seed people. Why does Burt’s greenhouse have so many ultraviolet lights installed in there?

If they kill plants? Maybe there’s something I don’t understand. I mean, grow lights are different, right? They like mimic the sun,

Craig: right?

Todd: But what we’re talking about here is ultraviolet lights, which would kill the plants and it’s going to kill the seed people. So anyway, it doesn’t make sense to me. But Burt’s easy to convince about this whole scheme with about a few sentences, older seed people invading.

Okay. I knew something funny he was going on, uh, and they grab up all the lights and then they go and they make, uh, essentially, gosh, it was like return to the living dead to right where they make, um, kind of a tunnel except, and I think returning, living dead too. They were, they were rigging up with electricity.

This is almost no different because they rig up this kind of frame. Over the road with all these ultraviolet lights in it, and they have a really long extension cord to plug it into this power thing that is continuously and constantly sparking

Craig: and they set up, it’s like a frame is what it looks like of these ultraviolet lights.

And, and I think it’s Brad. And Heidi. I think the seed people still think that Brad and Heidi are seed people so they can infiltrate and they like are driving the truck that they’ve loaded the seed people have loaded all these pods into,

Todd: yeah, they kind of pretend to be them again, don’t they? That surprised me because I didn’t see a scene in between.

All of a sudden I saw the two of them driving a truck all of a sudden, and I thought, how did they get. Back there.

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. They just went back, I guess, and so I get, they think that the seed people are going to, are going to lead them right by this power plants or whatever it is. They call it the substation.

I think they think that they’re going to lead them right by there, but at the last minute, the seed people like try to divert them away so they have to blow their cover and drive the truck. Really fast towards this substation and they get there, but the seed people are like attacking them. And so they very haphazardly go into this light tunnel and like they crash it up.

A good part of it. And I’m thinking, there’s no way this is gonna work now, but apparently also in crashing it like. They moved it just enough so that the extension cord won’t read.

Todd: I have this, I have this problem in my living room all the time, by the way,

Craig: and it’s, it’s, it’s right out of. And, okay, so every, you know, everything’s going crazy.

The seed people are fighting the Nazi people, and doc meanwhile has these two ends of the cord and it’s not even like, and it’s the extension cord. It’s like the wire has been severed, so he’s got to live wires. And he can’t get them together. So the way that I viewed what happened, and tell me if I’m wrong here, didn’t he like use himself to close the circuit?

Todd: Yeah. So idea was he was being electrocuted through the, you had to close the circuit,

Craig: right. So then all the lights come on and all of the seed people are cured. Except for Mrs. Santiago, apparently for reasons unexplained, I guess the light didn’t touch her or something. And so she jumps in the car and starts driving off, and then Tom is in the back of the truck trying to stop her, but a big monster attacks in, and that’s when he falls and hits his head.

Now he remembered that he’s telling this story, so I don’t know how he knows what happened. Benz after he fell and hit his head and was unconscious.

Todd: There are a lot of these moments where there’s no way he knew what happened. Yeah. He’s narrating some scene. He was never there for.

Craig: So after he gets knocked out, apparently Mrs. Santiago, I don’t remember why, drives off a cliff. And the, the truck explodes as they always do when you drive off a cliff.

Todd: Once again, this could have been a really, and they were trying so hard, they were trying so hard to make this a thrilling action scene and all the pieces were there with his truck driving by and him in the back and him almost falling out.

And he does fall out. I mean, there’s stunt work and stuff, but you can’t help but notice that even though this truck is supposed to be going, I don’t know, 40 50 miles an hour, it’s not blowing their hair around.

Craig: Yeah,

Todd: it’s, it just looks so much like a truck just being shaken in a dark room, you know, with just enough lighting to see what’s going on.

Uh, so low rent, low budget, uh, which is, uh, it’s a bit of a shame. It just, like I said, that’s how I feel about the whole movie. Well, there’s some touch at the end, right? So he finishes telling the story to the doctor and to this G man, or whatever. They basically say, thank you, thank you very much for the story.

And the G man turns to the doctor and says, okay, like you can finish it or whatever.

Craig: Well, the and, and the, the FBI guy has been shady, the whole movie and, and he just, every single time we cut back, he’s like, Oh, that’s, that’s an interesting part of your story. What about doc? What about doc? What happened to him?

What happened to him. Like he has just been asking the whole time. And finally at the end, the guy, I don’t know why he couldn’t have just told them this from the beginning, but at the very end, he, I guess he says, well, he’s dead because. He got electrocuted or whatever, and then then the guy’s like, Oh, okay, well thanks.

That’s all I needed to know. Thank you for taking an hour to tell me.

Todd: I didn’t think about it that way.

Craig: Didn’t you? I mean, you saw this coming a million miles, 10 minutes into the movie. You knew what was going to happen at the end, so the FBI guy’s like, don’t worry, everything’s cool. Heidi and Kim are just in the other room and he’s like, okay, well. I’ll bring them in and Heidi comes in and you can tell just by the way that she’s acting that she’s a seed, said

Todd: everything’s fine,

Craig: doc Rover is dead.

Then we don’t have anyone else to worry about doing that anymore.

Todd: Ah,

Craig: the end, like

Todd: you gonna take over the world now. Once they get across that bridge to the rest of the world, they

Craig: open up that bridge. It’s over. Gosh, I don’t know. Here there is a good thing about this movie and that is, it is short,

Todd: tight, hour and 20 minutes.

Craig: Yeah. Well, not even, it says, I think on IMG B it says it’s like an hour and 27 minutes or something like that, and then, yeah. When I pulled up the file, it was only one 21, and the movie was really over by one 15. Then it was just there. Then there were credits, and then there was, you know, the full moon, like preview, uh, after that.

So the movie really is not more than an hour and 15 minutes long and thank goodness cause it felt. Like days long.

No, that’s, that’s an exaggeration. It didn’t really feel that long. It just wasn’t good. Like I was looking forward to watching something fun and goofy and it’s, it’s not like I was. Self-harming to get myself through it or anything. It was fine. We’ve seen worse. Um, it was just kind of a disappointment. I was, I was looking for something a little bit more fun.

Todd: Well, I think you hit the nail on the head is that it just took itself so seriously. It was just so adapt that you’re not in on any joke. I mean, it’s, if it is a throwback to these fifties movies, it doesn’t play like one, you know, it doesn’t play like a parody or a loving homage or anything. It just kind of plays like a lame rip off.

And the production value is so low and we’ve seen lower, I mean we really have, but it’s so laughable at points, but not in a particularly fun way because what’s going on. Just kind of low stakes. I mean, we never really get terribly invested in these characters. We don’t really care too much about what happens to them.

They don’t even seem like real people. Uh, everything’s really contrived. It’s hard to even follow this little investigation or, you know, part of it, I guess, is that the movie kind of comes in when everything’s already happened. Or happened. Yeah. Usually at the movie like this, you know, there’s some build, right?

You see a comment, Oh, what was that? And you’ve got the first guy who discovers it, right? And so you see it kind of. Dare. I say sprout in the beginning and grow out, but here it’s like the maids already got it from the very beginning, the maids. Got it. You don’t know how she got it. Maybe this is a good one.

This is a good movie for our times. You know, you don’t know how this stuff spreads. You just wake up one day and suddenly everybody’s got it, but it starts the movie there. Yeah. You know, so there’s not even that kind of build. Yeah. By the time you realize there’s something sinister going on, it’s kind of already almost done.

Craig: Yeah. The, uh, the director. Okay. So Charles van gets a writing credit just for having the idea. Um, and then it was written by, the screenplay was written by a guy named Jackson Bard. I didn’t really look into him, but the, the director. Um, Peter Manoukian, I looked at his credits and he directed demonic toys for full moon.

And I haven’t seen that movie since I was a kid. But I remember thinking that movie was fun and funny when I was young. So we may have to revisit that at some point. Cause I remember. I remember it being darkly comedic and kind of crass. I mean, I was little when I saw it, but I had looked him up before I watched the movie.

I’m like, Oh, we did demonic toys. Cool. Like that was kind of a fun movie and this, this just wasn’t, I mean, and that’s fine. You know, especially with full moon, you know it’s going to be hit or miss. Um, and even the hits are not like amazing, can just kind of be fun diversions, uh, every once in awhile. Um, so for what it is.

Fine. Okay. You know, it felt very much like something that you would catch really late at night on cable back in the day. Yeah. Kind of feels like drive or drive in fair. I’m just not a great example of it.

Todd: It’s an artifact from an era, and I think we talked about this too when we talked about David Makoto and his output, and that was, there was a time in the early to mid eighties where you could just make a genre movie.

And sell it to the home video market. All you needed was some money and a script and have the resources to put something together. It didn’t matter if it was good or bad, it was gonna sell. And so there were full moon, basically full moon. Roger Corman became that everything. David Makoto did, you know one of my favorite guys, uh, Jim white, Norske, all these guys were just in this trauma.

We’re just going to churn out as much as we can. It doesn’t matter if it’s that great to just use the money we get, we know it’s going to sell. And, uh, and that’s what, that’s this is the kind of move you get out of that sometimes, like you said, sometimes there’s something just quirky and it just really works.

Most of the time it’s like this. Yeah,

Craig: but, and, but this movie feels like it was late to the party. Like it’s difficult for me to believe that this was made in 1992. It seems like something that should have been made in 1982. You know, like, I don’t know. It. Maybe this was the tail end of the era and it was kind of peering out, but this wasn’t the bang it should have gone out on if that’s the case.

But whatever. I mean, I love watching obscure things that I’ve never heard of before, and for that reason alone, um, I’m glad that Mikey, uh, recommended it. And it was, it was frankly a lot more fun to talk about than it was to watch.

Todd: Yeah, that’s true. And thank you, Mikey, again for your requests. We really appreciate it.

And if any of the rest of you have any requests, you can just look us up. Two guys in a chainsaw or anywhere online. Now we have a Facebook page. We have a YouTube channel. We have a website. Just leave us a comment. Any one of those places. We are plowing through a bunch of requests right now, so it’s not too late to send us yours.

You enjoyed this podcast. Please do share it with a friend and help us increase our listenership. Until next time, I’m Todd,

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Todd: With two guys and a chainsaw.